Tristar Pictures, Affirm Films, Provident Films,
Sarah Drew, Trace Adkins, Sean Astin, Patricia Heaton, Abbie Cobb, Sammi Hanratty, Harry Shum Jr.
Allyson (Sarah Drew) is a stay at home Mom who is losing it. The pressures of being surrounded by little people every day is driving her nuts. So she and her friends decide that they are going to take a Mom’s Night Out, and simply enjoy themselves, and let it all hang out. Of course, it’s hard to leave their children behind with the men that they’re married to, but to make it a real getaway night, they decide to leave the cell phones in the car. But the bumbling husbands aren’t up to the task, even though they get together to help each other babysit, things start going wrong and spin out of control getting worse and worse until disaster after disaster takes them.
This is a very typical movie of this genre, and we’ve seen this many times before. All the way back to Clueless or Daddy Day Care, to dozens of other films (and TV Sitcoms) we’ve seen the hapless Dad’s trying to keep up, and the Mom’s worrying themselves to the point where they cannot enjoy themselves. My wife and I went for a weekend in Vegas once our little girl was big enough to spend two nights at her Aunt’s house, and before we got to the hotel, both my Wife and I missed her so much that we worried the entire weekend away only to find out she hardly missed us. This is what is going on here, but the comedy writers bring in some really crazy characters (see Trace Adkins, his character is hysterical). He had a very small role in the film, but was so good that they kept expanding it until he became one of the major players. Good thinking on your feet guys. I didn’t blast this film, as it is very funny and entertaining, but I have to pull back from an all out recommendation due to the number of times films so similar have already been made. That has to take a little away from the freshness of this movie. However, there is an audience for this kind of laugh fest in young Mom’s who can hardly ever get out for a few minutes themselves, and folks who haven’t heard the same story over and over. The humor is a bit over the top, too, but it does have some really funny situations. I wasn’t overly impressed with this, and felt they could have done a bit better at making it less like a 90 minute sitcom, but on the other hand I found myself laughing out loud a few times, and I was interested enough to make it through the whole film. I just wish it could have been a little bit more fresh.
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