One out of
Five stars
Running time:
99 mins
Dismal comedy that wastes its decent premise in favour of painfully unfunny slapstick, homophobic innuendo and a plot that's both insulting and annoying.
What's it all about?
Troubled businessman Woody (John Travolta), family guy dentist Doug (Tim Allen), hen-pecked aspiring author Bobby (Martin Lawrence) and computer nerd Dudley (William H Macy) are four middle-aged men who spend their weekends biking on their Harleys, calling themselves the Wild Hogs. When their collective mid-life crises reach critical mass, they decide to go on a road trip from Cincinatti to California.
However, things hit a slight snag when they run into feared biker gang the Del Fuegos and inadvertently anger their leader, Jack (Ray Liotta). When the Del Fuegos track the Wild Hogs to a small town, the stage is set for a spectacularly rubbish showdown.
The Good
The sole person to emerge with any dignity is William H Macy, whose performance is the only enjoyable thing in the entire film, even if his character is repeatedly humiliated in unamusing ways.
The Bad
Where to start? There's not a single funny joke in the entire film, unless your idea of humour involves characters repeatedly crashing into things. In addition, the homophobic gay jokes are so relentless that after a while, they actually start to become insulting.
The script has to shoulder most of the blame for how dire Wild Hogs is but the actors don't help much either, whether they're mugging shamelessly (Travolta) or just desperately trying to wring some humour out of the gag-free script (Allen). Similarly, there's no attempt at any kind of character development and the comedy set pieces (slapping a bull, being caught skinny-dipping, an abysmal Extreme Home Makeover pastiche during the end credits) fall horribly flat.
Worth seeing?
This is a painfully unfunny comedy that strains for every laugh and almost dies in the attempt. It's also boring, badly written and genuinely insulting in places. Avoid like your life depended on it.