Review of Wild Hogs (2007) by Angel R — 18 Dec 2014

Review In A Nutshell:

Wild Hogs is a better than average comedy that revolves around four middle-aged men, who have troubling personal lives, embarking on a cross-country motorcycle adventure in order to recapture their youthful selves. The film is definitely a cliché, right down to the Easy Rider references, but a lot of the times it worked, displaying bouncing and hilarious chemistry between each leading character and featuring an antagonist, thanks to good casting, that is both physically and verbally menacing. The film's comedic highlight is William H. Macy, playing an intelligent person who sometimes lacks the common sense or is ignorant of the things around him; it works because he remains humble and loveable about it throughout, it never came off as too idiotic. His character also has a charming relationship with Marisa Tomei's character, giving the film break from its sometimes too isolated comedic set-pieces. John Travolta and Tim Allen's role, however, are present more to drive the "emotional" story forward, but they were able to give some moments for them to show off their comedic talent, and about half of them got a chuckle or two out of me. Martin Lawrence's character, I felt was too pitiful here, relying on his inferior and push over personality too much and not doing anything smart with it. Wild Hogs could have been a 20 minute shorter film, as I felt the chilli festival and a couple minor segments during this film could have been left in the cutting room floor, and if done so then this would have been a much tighter and more pleasurable film. I would definitely be seeing this film again in the future because this is a crowd favourite in the household; I don't mind it because I have seen far worse films.