William H. Macy is the kind of actor who can brighten up just about any film he appears in. He's got a certain charm and likeability that he brings to just about every performance. It is perhaps no surprise that Macy is not only the best thing about
Wild Hogs, but is also the film's sole highlight. In the film, Macy plays a meek computer programmer who leaves on a motorcycle road trip with four of his middle-aged friends. His character has a certain warmth and sweetness that everyone else, and the movie itself, lacks. I wanted to see his character appear in a better movie, one that was worthy of Macy's performance. The movie that surrounds the performance is a plotless and pointless exercise in tired slapstick and homophobic humor. Light as a feather and dumb as a brick,
Wild Hogs flounders about lifelessly whenever Macy isn't on the screen.
The paper thin plot, which exists simply to hook a series of sight gags and skits onto, centers around four lifelong friends who are all suffering different mid-life crisis. Doug (Tim Allen) is a dentist who is losing respect in his preteen son's eyes. Bobby (Martin Lawrence) has lost respect from everyone in his family, and is struggling to find work. Woody (John Travolta) has just gone through a messy divorce with his model wife, and has wound up losing all of his money in the process. And Dudley (William H. Macy) is a 40-year-old virgin who has devoted his whole life to computers and technology, and therefore has no idea how to act around women. The four have always had a passion for motorcycles, and Woody hatches a plan that they should all just hop on their bikes and explore the open road together. The friends go through a series of misadventures as they try to add some excitement to their dreary lives, and ultimately wind up running afoul of a vicious biker gang led by the dangerous Jack (Ray Liotta cashing a paycheck in a throwaway role) after one of the four guys accidentally blows up the gang's biker bar.
Wild Hogs is the kind of movie that the people who design trailers dream about. That's because the movie is simply a series of loosely connected gags and scenes tied together by a loose plot. The trailer can't ruin the plot, because there is none to speak of. Then again, watching the movie itself is a lot like watching a 100-minute long trailer. There isn't a single scene that helps develop the characters, or supply us with any real dialogue or emotions. It's just an endless build up of gags that often wind up falling on their face more than hitting their target. I smiled a couple times while watching
Wild Hogs, but never truly laughed. The movie relies far too heavily on outdated slapstick where people are hit in the head or fall over so frequently, we start waiting for it to happen, and we're usually right in our predictions. Equally outdated is the film's numerous unfunny jokes involving gays. There are a number of instances where the four friends find themselves in a situation where they are mistaken for being gay, or scenes where the movie simply uses a feminine man for laughs for no reason whatsoever. The film's screenwriter is Brad Copeland, who has written many very funny TV shows such as
My Name is Earl,
Arrested Development, and
NewsRadio. Maybe he got nervous writing his first full-length screenplay, but the humor on display here is far below the quality his TV shows usually display. The brief running gag concerning the four friends being pursued by an overly aroused gay cop who keeps on trying to join in what he thinks are sexual games is not only more creepy than funny, but wouldn't cut it on any of the three shows I mentioned earlier.
Because of the lame and uninspired script, the usually talented cast are not able to escape from its banality, and wind up becoming victims to it. Tim Allen, John Travolta, and Martin Lawrence merely disappear into the background, not really creating anything resembling a character, nor getting any memorable lines. It's like director Walt Becker (
National Lampoon's Van Wilder) cast them thinking they could just be funny on their own, but forgot to give them anything funny to do. Instead, only William H. Macy is able to break through of the cliched "geek" character he's stuck with, and make himself stand out. This has nothing to do with the character or the dialogue he's been given, it's all thanks to Macy's undeniable screen presence. He makes the character work because of his performance. It's a shame that the movie doesn't give him anything truly interesting to do with that performance. He does have a romantic subplot with a sweet small town waitress (Marisa Tomei), but the movie forgets to give them a reason to fall in love or anything resembling a real relationship, since Tomei's character maybe has four minutes worth of dialogue in the entire film. Likewise, Ray Liotta is given very little to work with as the closest thing the film has to a villain, but at least he seems to be having fun with the role. Everyone else who walks into the movie may as well be a cardboard cutout for all the attention the movie pays them. Not even a last minute cameo by Peter Fonda earns its laugh, because the movie makes the fatal mistake of thinking that the star of
Easy Rider playing a legendary biker is funny by itself, instead of giving him something actually funny to go along with his role.
I have no problem with respectable actors like Macy and Liotta appearing in silly movies like this, as long as the film itself is up to their talents.
Wild Hogs casts them adrift in an aimless screenplay where they're forced to survive merely on their screen presence alone. They manage to stay afloat, but the movie itself sinks faster with each passing uninspired moment. This movie could have been made by anyone, and did not need to involve such strong talent. The entire movie itself winds up being a bust even as a buddy road trip comedy, as we never truly believe that the four main characters are friends to begin with. They have no real chemistry together, and never get to create a strong bond with one another necessary for this kind of film.
Wild Hogs seems to just want to make us laugh and show us a good time. If this is true, the filmmakers should have rethought their strategy before the actors went before the cameras.
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William H. Macy is the kind of actor who can brighten up just about any film he appears in. He's got a certain charm and likeability that he brings to just about every performance. It is perhaps no surprise that Macy is not only the best thing about Wild Hogs, but is also the film's sole highlight. In the film, Macy plays a meek computer programmer who leaves on a motorcycle road trip with four of his middle-aged friends. His character has a certain warmth and sweetness that everyone else, and the movie itself, lacks. I wanted to see his character appear in a better movie, one that was worthy of Macy's performance. The movie that surrounds the performance is a plotless and pointless exercise in tired slapstick and homophobic humor. Light as a feather and dumb as a brick, Wild Hogs flounders about lifelessly whenever Macy isn't on the screen.
The paper thin plot, which exists simply to hook a series of sight gags and skits onto, centers around four lifelong friends who are all suffering different mid-life crisis. Doug (Tim Allen) is a dentist who is losing respect in his preteen son's eyes. Bobby (Martin Lawrence) has lost respect from everyone in his family, and is struggling to find work. Woody (John Travolta) has just gone through a messy divorce with his model wife, and has wound up losing all of his money in the process. And Dudley (William H. Macy) is a 40-year-old virgin who has devoted his whole life to computers and technology, and therefore has no idea how to act around women. The four have always had a passion for motorcycles, and Woody hatches a plan that they should all just hop on their bikes and explore the open road together. The friends go through a series of misadventures as they try to add some excitement to their dreary lives, and ultimately wind up running afoul of a vicious biker gang led by the dangerous Jack (Ray Liotta cashing a paycheck in a throwaway role) after one of the four guys accidentally blows up the gang's biker bar.
Wild Hogs is the kind of movie that the people who design trailers dream about. That's because the movie is simply a series of loosely connected gags and scenes tied together by a loose plot. The trailer can't ruin the plot, because there is none to speak of. Then again, watching the movie itself is a lot like watching a 100-minute long trailer. There isn't a single scene that helps develop the characters, or supply us with any real dialogue or emotions. It's just an endless build up of gags that often wind up falling on their face more than hitting their target. I smiled a couple times while watching Wild Hogs, but never truly laughed. The movie relies far too heavily on outdated slapstick where people are hit in the head or fall over so frequently, we start waiting for it to happen, and we're usually right in our predictions. Equally outdated is the film's numerous unfunny jokes involving gays. There are a number of instances where the four friends find themselves in a situation where they are mistaken for being gay, or scenes where the movie simply uses a feminine man for laughs for no reason whatsoever. The film's screenwriter is Brad Copeland, who has written many very funny TV shows such as My Name is Earl, Arrested Development, and NewsRadio. Maybe he got nervous writing his first full-length screenplay, but the humor on display here is far below the quality his TV shows usually display. The brief running gag concerning the four friends being pursued by an overly aroused gay cop who keeps on trying to join in what he thinks are sexual games is not only more creepy than funny, but wouldn't cut it on any of the three shows I mentioned earlier.
Because of the lame and uninspired script, the usually talented cast are not able to escape from its banality, and wind up becoming victims to it. Tim Allen, John Travolta, and Martin Lawrence merely disappear into the background, not really creating anything resembling a character, nor getting any memorable lines. It's like director Walt Becker (National Lampoon's Van Wilder) cast them thinking they could just be funny on their own, but forgot to give them anything funny to do. Instead, only William H. Macy is able to break through of the cliched "geek" character he's stuck with, and make himself stand out. This has nothing to do with the character or the dialogue he's been given, it's all thanks to Macy's undeniable screen presence. He makes the character work because of his performance. It's a shame that the movie doesn't give him anything truly interesting to do with that performance. He does have a romantic subplot with a sweet small town waitress (Marisa Tomei), but the movie forgets to give them a reason to fall in love or anything resembling a real relationship, since Tomei's character maybe has four minutes worth of dialogue in the entire film. Likewise, Ray Liotta is given very little to work with as the closest thing the film has to a villain, but at least he seems to be having fun with the role. Everyone else who walks into the movie may as well be a cardboard cutout for all the attention the movie pays them. Not even a last minute cameo by Peter Fonda earns its laugh, because the movie makes the fatal mistake of thinking that the star of Easy Rider playing a legendary biker is funny by itself, instead of giving him something actually funny to go along with his role.
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