So my last review was for The Raid 2, a film in which a deaf woman kills a squad of bodyguards on a train with a couple of hammers. So it makes sense that my follow up review would be for a movie about mothers going out to dinner. And not just any dinner. Fancy dinner. That’s equivalent, right?
Mom’s Night Out is a madcap romp in the vein of Adventures in Babysitting. Fed up with the insanity of raising children and never getting time to themselves, three mothers leave the joys of parenting up to the Dads and set out on a night just for the girls. What happens next is a series of hijinks and mishaps involving a tattoo parlor full of criminals and idiots, a biker gang, a lost child, a car chase, rude waiters, and basically any minor contrivance to make the night of these three mothers not go as planned.
The ultimate madcap romp photo.
Here’s what’s good. The opening sequence. Basically everything up till the trip itself starts is just aces. So probably a good 20 minutes in before anything loses steam. Opening with mother and blogger Allyson writing about the torment of her children, Mom’s Night Out prints the words on the screen as we quickly get introduced to the family, the problems of the children, her friends, and life in general. It’s honest, quickly paced and edited, and just flat out funny. It’s a high the rest of the movie doesn’t quite keep up with but like many of these types of films, when it’s funny, it’s really funny.
Allyson and female friends Sondra and Izzy leave the kids at home for a night on the town that starts with the rude wait staff at a local chic restaurant, goes down the tubes when that leads to the realization that Allyson’s sister in law’s baby is missing, which leads to a set of misunderstandings, incompetent husbands, a silly but enjoyable enough chase scene, and a whole bunch of bikers (of the Hells Angels type).
The firm details of said events are not important. The fact that not everyone is a great actor or actress is less of a deal breaker. The inconsistent tone and pace is disappointing after a wickedly strong opening, however that’s not a problem.
What moms believe about leaving the dads alone.
Here’s what’s important. This movie works. I had the joy of seeing it opening night with a theater full of mothers. They giggled and chatted the whole time. There was a collective “yes, that’s motherhood” vibe when the room erupted with laughter and near the end when the schmaltz was in full force, the mothers were openly crying. They understood at a level the rest of us couldn’t possibly
The film digs itself a hole with the missing baby story that is far too quickly resolved with one of those scenes where it feels like a whole bunch of material got left on the cutting room floor. It involves an entire motorcycle gang appearing out of thin air and group cheering in a way that really wasn’t earned. But none of these trivialities mattered to the moms. Directors Andrew Erwin, Jon Erwin knew what they were doing. They were showing what mom’s feel about their job. They showed the silly and the squishy emotions in the right order. The took fear of being a mom, through it into a crazy blender, and popped it out of an Easy Bake Oven as a toasty children’s cake of about the same quality you remember those cakes having.
Which is to say. It’s yummy enough in small doses and won’t compare to a real molten lava cake by your favorite local celebrity chef.
The joyful torment. Love and mess = kids.
At 98 minutes, you get about 38 minutes of flat out great comedy, 40 minutes of passable comedy, and 20 minutes of “should have left it in the easy bake longer” comedy. It would have felt like more than 98 minutes if not for the sudden and abrupt resolution. Too much packed into too little space. But the people who needed to see Mom’s Night Out were in the audience and that’s all that matters.
As I drove my little GTI out of the movie theater parking lot, a group of said attendees stared at me drive away while gossiping next to their mini-van. A maternal tailgate party of sorts. Mom’s night out indeed.