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by Willie Waffle

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Wild Hogs

Wild Hogs implies this movie is funny, exciting and hilarious.  Now that I have seen it, a more appropriate title would have been Wild Bores.  It really is a highway to hell for all involved.      

John Travolta stars as Woody – a Cincinnati guy who seems to have it all, but lost it all when his supermodel wife asked for a divorce, and his depression led to a loss of clients and business (maybe she wanted a divorce because she is a supermodel stuck in Cincinnati).  Now, he wants to run away from his troubles and convinces his friends - dentist Doug (Tim Allen), plumber Bobby (Martin Lawrence) and computer programmer Dudley (William H. Macy) - to take a road trip to the Pacific Ocean on their Harleys.  It’s a chance to be wild, young and free like they haven’t been in several years (kind of like the actors’ real careers).  Of course, hilarity ensues (at least it is supposed to) as they get into a few scrapes, and make enemies with a real biker gang led by Jack (Ray Liotta).

Will Jack and his gang beat Woody, Doug, Dudley and Bobby to a pulp?

Gathering 4 major stars like this is supposed to bring out the best in everybody as each one displays what made them popular, and bring out the competitive spirit to perform at the highest level, but this movie brings out the worst in everyone.  Wild Hogs is a great example of Disneyfied, toothless, safe comedy that doesn’t get too crazy and outrageous, even when that is precisely what this movie is begging for. 

Director Walt Becker and writer Brad Copeland have the framework for what could have been a funny buddy comedy, or a slapstick classic, but can’t come up with the material that is good enough to be memorable.  Wild Hogs never gets wacky and madcap enough to be that movie, and never gets truly emotional and caring enough to be that movie.  Instead, it’s a movie running down the middle of the road, and you know what you find in the middle of the road?  Bad movies and slow squirrels.

Overall, Wild Hogs feels like a paint-by-numbers/movie-by- marketing-department film.  They’re buddies, so we are supposed to see them helping each other with problems, even though most of the problems are tiny obstacles never explored in any kind of a deep fashion or with any detail to make us feel good for the character who overcomes the issue.  It’s a comedy, so whacky things are supposed to happen, even though we only get three or four funny and wacky moments, so the movie never gets enough momentum to reach the level of truly great wacky road trip movies like Vacation or Planes, Trains and Automobiles or even Little Miss Sunshine (in its funniest moments).   

Worst of all, our cast of likable actors, and Martin Lawrence, all have to oversell the weak material.  Each one has a moment of crisis where they have to force the funny, which makes you feel sorry for them.  Lawrence has to make an idiotic face when punched, or Macy has to put on a goofy smile when caught without his pants.  Even Travolta is forced to act like he is in over his head with worry as the real biker gang comes after them.  If the movie was crazy enough, maybe this would work, but it isn’t, so some subtlety might have been a good way to go.

Even when we get a cameo from the star of another famous motorcycle movie (desperately trying to act like David Carradine in Kung Fu), my reaction was one of despair instead of exhilaration.  Wild Hogs needs something happening in every scene to make it better and more interesting. 

1 Waffles (Out Of 4)                

Wild Hogs is rated PG-13 for crude and sexual content and some violence.   

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