Film

Wild Hogs (2007)

Director: Walt Becker

Movie review

From Time Out Chicago

Middle-class rubes whose response to the terrors of midlife is to straddle a specific brand of loud, lumbering, overpriced, atrociously engineered motorcycle: That’s subject matter of infinite comic potential. And a violent encounter between this sort of bozo and the meth-dealing pimps whose long association with said bikes underwrites the brand’s lame “outlaw” mystique: That’d make an excellent satirical horror film.

Well, shed a tear for what will never be, then steer clear of this witless and arrhythmic orgy of product placement.

Equipped with one personality trait apiece, Travolta, Lawrence, Macy and the insufferable Allen flee the ’burbs for the open road, get propositioned by a gay state trooper (oh, the anxiety!) and run afoul of “real” bikers led by Liotta. The bikers corner them in a town that’s lived in fear of the gang for years. After much oh-jeez-we’re-in-for-it-now backpedaling, the entire populace takes to the streets armed with baseball bats, chains and tire irons. (As in Norbit, the formation of a lynch mob is presented as a heart-warming moment of community renewal—it’s feel-good stuff for the age of Bush-Cheney.) But bloodshed is averted when grizzled Peter Fonda steps off his hog to remind everybody of the true meaning of the spirit of the open road. Maybe that’s a spoiler, but some movies simply don’t qualify for spoiler protection. 

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