If I were a clever punster I’d have come up with some witty alteration to Easy Rider to reflect the age of the Wild Hogs cast. I’m not a clever punster, though, so you’ll just have to think one up yourself or rely on our nation’s elite corps of headline editors who I am sure spent the week working on it.
It’s really a bad sign that a version of the previous paragraph was running through my head during most of the movie’s first half. An even worse sign is that for most of the second half I was hoping for an Easy Rider-esque conclusion to the movie.
Cheesy Rider?
Sorry, it’s the best I’ve got, though it is appropriate. Doug (Tim Allen), Woody (John Travolta), Bobby (Martin Lawrence), and Dudley (William H. Macy) are all settling poorly into middle age and the one hotspot left in their routine is a weekly ride from the suburbs to have a beer at the nice clean biker bar for other middle-aged yuppies.
So, with nary a pause for any originality, the four set off to rediscover their freedom and wild roots. Doug wants to escape the boredom of being a mild suburban dentist dad, Woody is hiding the fact that he’s broke and getting divorced, Bobby is looking to escape a hectoring wife, and Dudley is just a milquetoast computer programmer still afraid of talking to a girl.
Once on the road, things quickly devolve—for the characters as well as for the audience. The problems are perhaps highlighted by the fact that in the compulsory travel montage they go from the hills of Cincinnati to west Texas before finally getting to Missouri. “Cheesy” is the only appropriate word for the slapstick antics of the first act.
Image © Disney.
They end up sleeping on a single air mattress and are mistaken for some kind of gay orgy. Hah hah. They go skinny dipping in a roadside pool and are mistaken for some kind of gay orgy. Ho Ho. They pee off various roadside embankments. Hardy har.
Mild Dogs? Nope, that’s no better. But that is the amazing thing about the failure of these four actors. Each has shown himself capable of immense screen chemistry, yet each seems to spend the whole movie trying to avoid the camera and hoping the spotlight will fall elsewhere.
Travolta plays second fiddle to Allen, Tim Allen is out-hammed by Martin Lawrence who is out-funnied by Macy. Fortunately the homo-confusion based humor of the first half gives way to some real dramatic conflict in the second half when our band of heroes unintentionally aggravates a real biker gang. You know they’re a real biker gang because they have tattoos and are led by Ray Liotta doing his best scenery chewing.
After the Wild Hogs accidentally blow up the bar owned by the Del Fuegos gang, the film finally gets around to trying to have a point. They hide out in the New Mexico town of Madrid, a town that, it turns out, is thoroughly terrified of the Del Feugos (yes, I just wrote “of the of the fire”). A town rightfully terrified since the sheriff isn’t allowed to carry a firearm (his online policeman course recommended gaining firearms practice by playing Doom). Will our heroes find a way to stand up to these bullies? Will they rediscover themselves? Will anything either actually funny or actually dramatic happen?
By this point I was beyond caring. So, from my notes, a few bullet points:
- Why is Martin Lawrence in this group? He’s 15 years younger than everybody else. Was the part written with Bernie Mac in mind?
- Is there some reason that Dr. Drew Pinsky from LoveLine has a cameo? All of the other cameos are obvious but I’m missing something on this one.
- Marisa Tomei seems to understand that she’s in a pretty stupid movie and has fun with it.
- It’s sad when the best gag in the movie plays over the final credits.
- The real question about this movie is, how is it that 52-year-old Ray Liotta manages to look like he’s still in his late-30s? Oil of Olay should bottle his skin secretions.
All of this complaining aside, it is only fair to note that while I did not enjoy the movie at all, the audience as a whole seemed to laugh at every little pratfall and poop joke. So maybe it just isn’t for me.
Image © Disney.
If you’re a parent of young kids they’ll probably be entertained by the silliness of it all but you’ll be appalled by the unnecessary cursing, which feels completely out of place in this otherwise pretty tame movie. It almost feels like the cursing was added just to make sure they didn’t get a PG rating. But if language isn’t one of your big concerns, this could be a decent family movie for a period when the theaters are a little light on new family fare. But if you don’t have the excuse of having young kids in tow, I’d avoid this one.
