Wild Hogs


Not so wild, but worth $7.60.

The plot: Four 40-something friends hit the road to recover a bit of adventure in their unexciting lives. Doug Madsen (Tim Allen), Woody Stevens (John Travolta), Bobby Davis (Martin Lawrence) and Dudley Frank (William H. Macy) are bored, crashing, hen-pecked or geeky (respectively) and decide to head of on a week-long road trip on their bikes - hogs. They fancy themselves to be bikers and in their 'Wild Hogs' jackets (sown by Doug's wife, Kelly (Jill Hennessey)) they ride off on adventure.

There are a couple of minor incidents involving camping, a gay motorcycle cop and skinny-dipping. But the real trouble starts when the Wild Hogs decide to stop in and get a drink at a real biker bar run by the Del Fuegos, whose leader, Jack (Ray Liotta), takes an instant dislike to them. After a bit of an altercation that results in the biker bar being blown up, the Del Fuegos set their sites on the Hogs, who stop in the inoffensive and ill-protected town of Madrid (pronounced Mad-rid) for the chilli festival. It's here that Dudley meets Maggie (Marisa Tomei) and falls in love.

Needless to say, the Del Fuegos track them down to Madrid and a showdown ensues during which the guys stand up for themselves and the town, and the townsfolk subsequently grow a collective backbone. Peter Fonda makes a entrance as the 'easy rider' father of Jack and tells him to cool it. The Wild Hogs end the day as heroes.

In summary: The movie is a good bit of light comedy and an easy paycheck for Allen, Travolta, Lawrence and Macy. Nobody here broke a sweat in the filming and I got an hour and a half of laughs out of the experience. Look out for cameos by the Teutul's - Snr and Jnr.

The rating: 5 out of 10. I suspect they weren't aiming for much more than this easy score.

The Casablanca comparison: Ah, I hear you say, how can you compare anything in this to Casablanca? True.

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