Middle-aged men with crappy lives go out on a road trip on their motorcycles. Along the way they have wacky adventures, some romance, and have it out with a rival bike gang when one of their own is bullied. Think this movie doesn't exist? It does.
Fear not, Wild Hogs is not the greatest movie, but not nearly as bad as the critics have made it out to be.
Like the cast of the Ocean's Eleven trilogy, the cast here - John Travolta, William H. Macy, Martin Lawrence, and Tim Allen - make the average plot line believable through their own talents. It is unfortunate that Martin Lawrence got so little in the way of dialogue. In a normal film where he is the lead, he tends to take himself to the level of Robin Williams, making the story suit his personality rather than the other way around.
Travolta spends a lot of the time in some sort of anxiety attack, either over a divorce or the fact that he blew up the cafe hangout of the motorcycle gang the Del Fuegos (which are led by the recently canned star of CBS's Smith, Ray Liotta). His character seemed like the weakest link. But no, that honor could actually go to Tim Allen.
I was never able to stand Tim Allen during his years as that tool guy on ABC, or in any of his subsequent films. Mostly because since the people who make his films know he isn't funny, they spend most of their efforts doing loads of slapstick to cover that up.
Allen's character is a sad sack of a father who feels that his wife and child don't like him anymore and that he wants to do something cool in order to impress them. I actually didn't think his character really was suffering that much. Most children do tend to hate their parents as they get older and most wives do feel their husbands get a little dull.
Marriage, a relationship, anything involving two people will have redundancy — this doesn't necessarily a crisis make.
Perhaps the one who brings the most out and tends to have the best lines is William H. Macy, who is best at playing the frustrated Anglo-Saxon male who can't get laid and is always the one in the group that has the klutz factor. Watch for a scene where the Del Fuegos take over a cafe at a local town (owned by Marisa Tomei, who plays a love interest for Macy's character in the film) as he walks in with a crowbar. Great stuff for a film that on the surface has little to work with.
.jpg?t=20130517094513)
Article comments