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Film review

'Hogs' at home in this slop

Cheap jokes and a predictable story line push Wild Hogs to the back of the pack when it comes to taste.

By STEVE PERSALL
Published March 1, 2007

Wild Hogs is the perfect antidote to Academy Awards hangover, devoid of taste, style, imagination and all other qualities the Oscars honor.

Genuinely talented actors are wasted in this sputtering comedy about buddies on a midlife crisis road trip on motorcycles. They're "weekend warriors," suburban types who can afford fancy rides and flashy leather but don't have that antisocial edge made infamous by Hell's Angels in the 1960s.

In fact, Hell's Angels was the movie's original title until the biker club threatened to sue Disney for insulting its image after reading the screenplay. That's a telling accusation considering the Angels' history, checkered with violence, drugs and crime.

John Travolta is leader of the pack, playing Woody, a bankrupt investor whose supermodel wife has deserted him. Tim Allen co-stars as Doug, a disillusioned dentist seeking lost youth. Martin Lawrence is Bobby, a custodian who had a little success writing a self-help book. The obligatory nerd is Dudley William H. Macy, a computer programmer with zero luck with the ladies.

They're all good actors, all hamstrung by Brad Copeland's script, which doesn't include an ounce of the smart humor he brought to the sitcoms My Name Is Earl and Arrested Development.

Wild Hogs is simply a procession of dull, predictable events. The Hogs run afoul of the intimidating Del Fuegos biker gang, led by Ray Liotta. Everything comes to a head in sleepy Madrid, N.M., during a chili pepper festival. Any resemblance to Marlon Brando's classic The Wild One is undeniably accidental.

Dissecting the comedy is futile since it's so minimal.

The film constantly sinks into homophobic humor, rarely missing a chance to suggest that gays are something to be feared and ridiculed.

The nadir is John C. McGinley's brief role as a motorcycle cop who mistakes the Hogs for a sex quartet, although a family's panicked reaction to the guys skinny-dipping and Kyle Gass' ultra-fey singing at the chili pepper festival also scrape bottom.

Those kinds of jokes and a few stunt men taking dives are the extent of Wild Hogs' humor. Listening to an audience laughing at such distasteful gags at a preview makes me resent Walt Becker's movie even more.

Wild Hogs will likely make a fortune. Oscar envelopes are opened, cheap-shot entertainment returns and everything in Hollywood is back to abnormal.

Steve Persall can be reached at (727) 893-8365 or persall@sptimes.com.

Review

Wild Hogs

Grade: D

Director: Walt Becker

Cast: John Travolta, Tim Allen, William H. Macy, Martin Lawrence, Ray Liotta, Marisa Tomei, Stephen Tobolowsky

Screenplay: Brad Copeland

Rating: PG-13; profanity, violence, crude sexual humor

Running time: 99 min.

[Last modified February 28, 2007, 09:49:23]