Moms’ Night Out – Fun for the Family

Moms’ Night Out features a terrific car chase, an out-of-control taser, and a tattoo found on a most-unlikely subject. It also offers tons of excitement and hilarity, without reducing itself to the gratuitous violence and awkward sex scenes that seem to be standard today. If you want to see a movie that will make you laugh, that will make you feel better when leaving the movie than before you walked in, this one’s for you.

“I’m terrible at this,” says Ali, a mommy blogger (Sara Drew) with a following of three people, whose lifelong dream was to be a wife and mother. Ali feels like she’s the Bruce Banner of stay-at-home moms. Banner doesn’t want to turn into the Hulk. It just happens.

Husband Sean (Sean Astin) is constantly away on business (her daughter didn’t include him a drawing, because he’s never at home), and Ali, a clean freak, presides over a household that’s a total disaster. When Sean comes home and finds her cowered in a closet, fixated on an eagle cam, she sobs that this life is all she ever wanted, and yet, she’s not happy. The eagle seems to be a better mother than she is.

Ali’s friend, Izzy (Logan White), the mother of twin boys, is married to a man who’s afraid to take care of his own children, who takes nearly a dozen pregnancy tests to confirm the same result over and over; she’s pregnant. She seems to be holding it together better than Ali.

And then there’s Sondra (Patricia Heaton), who bustles through life trying to keep her teenage daughter on the straight and narrow while maintaining the image of the perfect preacher’s wife. Her attempts at texting rival the best disasters you’ve ever seen featured on Facebook.

When these three women decide to have a much-needed mom’s night out, Ali finally gets to put on those glitzy heels she hasn’t worn in two years, and the three women head out for a gourmet dining experience and who-knows-what after. Unfortunately, when they reach the restaurant, a new-age establishment where the manager is referred to as the visionary, Ali’s informed that she booked the reservation for the next Saturday, and she’s schooled by the haughty hostess (Anjelah Johnson-Reyes) on the meaning of this vs. next Saturday.

Thus begins the adventure in which the three women deal with problems like a “stolen” car and the “stolen” baby of a fourth woman, who joins them in their madcap adventure. Meanwhile, the dads encounter one mishap after another, including a dislocated shoulder and a crazy car chase. Finally everyone ends up at the police station, where someone gets tasered, and Trace Adkins, country music legend, who plays the part of a tattoo artist, takes on the role of a sage.

In the end, Ali discovers that she doesn’t have to be the perfect wife and mother to be right where she has always wanted to be. This might not be where every mother belongs, but it is the right place for her, right now.