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Title: Wild Hogs
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Movies take up to many different kinds of worlds. Fantasy worlds, science fiction worlds, and animated worlds. One of the worlds that Hollywood visits on almost a bi-weekly basis that I could live without is the worlds of pure delusion. This is the world where the characters of "Wild Hogs" live in, a world where there are eccentric characters to be found, places to go, and no cares in the world. The movie revolves around four men named Woody (John Travolta), Doug (Tim Allen), Bobby (Martin Lawrence), and Dudley (William H. Macy), who grew up in college and are now facing a mid-life crisis. Doug imagined his life would be more grand and adventurous when he grew up, but now he works as a dentists (though he occasionally calls himself doctor). Bobby is a struggling writer who works for a pluming company, and finds himself only second in command to his overbearing wife.
Dudley is a computer wiz who can't talk to girls, a fear that has followed him for what appears to be fifty years. Woody seems to be the most successful of the four, having married a supermodel and is extremely wealthy. Alas, he's too ashamed to tell everyone that his supermodel wife left him three months ago, and he's now so broke he can't even afford to pay a local kid more then ten dollars to rake his lawn. All four men are clearly not happy with their lives, but they do enjoy getting our their Harley Davidsons out once a week, putting on their Wild Hogs jackets, and pretending to be bikers. Then Woody pitches an idea: Why don't they take an unplanned road trip to California. The idea involves no planning, no map, and to just drop whatever it is your doing and going along for the ride. This is where the world of delusion comes into play in the screenplay.
All these men feel this is a great idea. And why shouldn't they, because despite being married, having families, and (for the most part) steady jobs, these men are clearly miserable. Maybe a road trip will cheer them up. This I can accept. What I don't accept is the wives of the men (that are still married anyway) simply accepting this idea. Doug's wife? She thinks this road trip would be great, and his son is so busy hanging out with his friends "cool dad" that he'll never miss his "uncool real dad." Dudley isn't married, so he's game. Woody has nowhere to go, so this is a grand adventure. Since Bobby responds to his wife and not the other way around, he tells her that he is going to a pluming conference. For the convenience of making sure the characters have no convenience, the screenplay has them destroy all their cell phones before they leave on the trip. You know, to make the journey more "adventurous." All this takes place in about ten minutes, so we can get what we paid for.
Gay jokes. Fire jokes. Poop jokes. Black jokes. And stupid jokes. Dear God are there stupid jokes all throughout this movie. Movies like this are not built on solid character or story foundations, they are built on stupid jokes. This movie lives by the rule where every misunderstanding that can happen does happen. I mean, how many times do we have to see the scene where all the men through completely unrealistic circumstances be forced to share one bed, and then have an outsider discover them and makes homosexual references. It's too easy (though I would also like to add that it's also not funny). Tim Allen continues to show that no matter how likable a guy he is, he REALLY needs to pick better scripts! By now he's WAY to old to be playing the family man, and maybe he really should do some independent film that could garner him an Oscar nomination or something.
William H. Macy looks completely wrong for this role, looking a good twenty years older then all the other actors he's working with. If he's a buddy friend of theirs, I hate to think if it was simply because he got held back in school for one year too many. John Travolta seems to be having the most fun with this movie, but at his age he doesn't want to make too many movies like this, because another career reviver like "Pulp Fiction" is a once in a lifetime thing to come along. The only actor who appears to be at home here is Martin Lawrence, who has a made a career out of making stupid comedies, and therefor we have no expectations of him. All in all though, I think this movie was a total waste. During interviews of this movie all the cast members talk about how much fun they all had making this movie.
The strange thing about this is the interviews from the cast of "Ocean's 11" were almost identical to these ones. The difference was with "Ocean's 11" you could feel in the movie that the cast was having fun, and a result they ended up making a fun movie, which is far more then I can say for "Wild Hogs."
- -Review By Kevin T. Rodriguez- -