Wild Hogs Review
by [email protected] (dnb AT dca DOT net)March 10th, 2007
WILD HOGS
A film review by David N. Butterworth
Copyright 2007 David N. Butterworth
no stars (out of ****)
Anne McCarthy and Jay Scully might not be household names except to anyone in their (respective) households but anybody who puts Tim Allen, John Travolta, Martin Lawrence, and William H. Macy together in the same movie, as a quartet of mid-life crisis sporting 50-somethings who decide to take a road trip together, probably deserves to be.
Heck, they *look* pretty funny standing there in their bad boy biker duds in the poster, don't they? (Allen, Travolta, Lawrence, and Macy that is, not McCarthy and Scully.) As "Wild Hogs" unfolds, however, it quickly becomes painfully clear that the *only* thing the film has going for it is that inventive casting decision. For what follows is a jaw-dropping succession of poop and gay jokes, a juvenile, brain dead excuse for a movie that squanders the talents of its intriguing cast and embarrasses just about everyone in the process.
"Four Guys. 2000 Miles. How Wild Can It Be?" Perhaps the better question is "Four Guys. 2000 Miles. Zero Script. How Bad Can It Be?" As one wannabe critic blogger economically put it, ""Gigli," Step Aside. You've Been Replaced!!!"
Firm friends since high school, Doug (Allen), Woody (Travolta), Bobby (Lawrence), and Dudley (Macy) are a bunch of aging, middle-income suburbanites who like to strap on their Harleys at the weekend. Allen is a dentist, Macy is a computer programmer, Lawrence is a hen-pecked plumber whose year off to write a self-help book has just come to an end, and Travolta's high-powered investor used to have it all... until his supermodel girlfriend dumped him. These are four guys in need of some serious Adventure and they find it when Woody suggests they take a week off and ride to the coast for the thrill of it, because it's there, because people like road movies and funny things tend to happen on the open road to the Pacific.
Funny things like neat freak, Apple-loving Dudley bagging his feces ala Borat. Funny things like a state trooper actually *enjoying* the idea of four grown men bunking down together *par terre* (after their tent is razed by an errant s'more). Funny poop 'n' gay things like that.
Brad Copeland's stillborn, stereotyping screenplay doesn't have a kickstand to lean on and director Walt Becker pushes everyone through his reluctant paces as if he's making a male menopausal sequel to his previous--and equally homophobic--"Buying the Cow." "Wild Hogs" may well boast Allen, Travolta, Lawrence, and Macy but nobody not nobody can save this pathetic picture. Not Ray Liotta as the leader of the Del Fuegos, a Hell's Angels-like band of badass bikers our motley heroes run afoul of; not the shapely Marisa Tomei as a diner owner Macy's character falls for; not Stephen Tobolowsky as an ineffectual sheriff; not even Peter Fonda as... Peter Fonda!
Oh sure. Some will hail the film as "Hysterically Funny" but I could just about manage a solitary snicker throughout, as Travolta reacts with rear-view mirror surprise to his surreptitious 'Fuego fixings (and then spends the entire movie acting like a big baby). Turns out that winning double-take is in the trailer, so I could have saved myself ten bucks--not to mention 90 precious minutes of my life--by downloading *it* instead.
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David N. Butterworth
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Originally posted in the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup. Copyright belongs to original author unless otherwise stated. We take no responsibilities nor do we endorse the contents of this review.
