| Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
| Tim Allen | ... | ||
| John Travolta | ... | ||
| Martin Lawrence | ... | ||
| William H. Macy | ... | ||
| Ray Liotta | ... | ||
| Marisa Tomei | ... | ||
| Kevin Durand | ... | ||
| M.C. Gainey | ... | ||
| Jill Hennessy | ... | ||
| Dominic Janes | ... |
Billy Madsen
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| Tichina Arnold | ... | ||
| Stephen Tobolowsky | ... | ||
| Jason Sklar | ... | ||
| Randy Sklar | ... | ||
| Drew Sidora | ... |
Haley Davis
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Four middle-aged men decide to take a road trip from Cincinnati to the Pacific in order to get away from their lives which are leading them nowhere. Taking their motorcycles, these "Wild Hogs" tear up the road and eventually stop in New Mexico for a drink not knowing that the bar belongs to the "Del Fuegos", a mean biker gang. When the Del Fuegos steal a bike that belongs to the Wild Hogs, the four men form a plan to steal their bike back. Written by Glenn D. Harvey
I attended a pre-release screening of the movie in Philadelphia, and I went in expecting a lot of zany sequences, funny violence and a truckload of laughs, and I wasn't disappointed.
Messrs. Travolta, Allen, Lawrence and Macy fit their parts well, and while the story doesn't demand a lot from the actors, they are good as middle-aged professionals tired of their boring lives. The film's theme is a road-trip across America on Harley-Davidson's, with leather jackets ("Wild Hogs" is what they call themselves) and all the other paraphernalia. The whole movie is littered with stereotypes and clichéd characters and plots, and this lends an air of predictability to it. Some people might say that it's closer to an animation, given the generous helpings of crashes and falls, but then I didn't find it to be a put-off because it doesn't pretend to be an action film. You fall, you look funny, you get back up, and story moves on.
At the outset, I thought that there might be a resemblance to Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, with it's concept of two tired guys out to discover the American Dream, but it isn't so. The humour is rib-tickling at times, and mostly slapstick. Among individual performances, nobody really steals the screen, but the overall chemistry between the Wild Hogs is good. Ray Liotta plays the bad guy with an overdose of menace, and Marisa Tomei did a good job of looking pretty. Some of the cinematography is breathtaking, but for a road trip across America, there was very little of variety in location.
I won't advise spending $15 on it in a theater, but it'll be a fun watch with friends, when the DVD comes out, much like how I would judge Eurotrip.