By Zack Medicoff


When I put this into my DVD player, I thought this was going to be another drivel of a Hollywood movie. A bunch of middle-aged actors trying to be funny on bikes. I thought back to the mid-90s CITY SLICKERS, and couldn’t help but think this was a poorly penned carbon copy.
But it’s not all half-bad.

Yes, they are middle aged men: Martin Lawrence, Tim Allen, John Travolta and William H. Macy to be exact. Their connection is they all are going through a little mid-life crises. And much like SLICKERS, they take off into America’s heartland to find their themselves and recapture “the good old days.”
Well, the foursome hop on the road to escape their jobs, wives, daily grind, cholesterol levels and financial situations. There’s a few really good scenes, especially the first morning of their camping trip where they run into another very funny actor, John C. McGuinty. He makes a few appearances in their two-wheeled summer sojourn.

They end up in another bar which appears as friendly biker joint, but is really the home of the Del Fuegos, whose gang member also adds in the middle aged mix, middle-aged actors, Ray Liotta.
But the movie actually works as the tough guys, like Liotta and Travolta, really pull off the comedy by tying to act like tough guys, while inside they’re quite far from it. Get what I mean?

Well, the gang does get in bit of trouble, and hurry to a small town near the Del Fuego’s HQ. That’s where they say hello to locals like Marisa Tomei and another funnyman, Stephen Tobolowski.



And just like in THE THREE AMIGOS, the group must defend the town from the evildoings of mean bikers, and protect the people from their harm which they’ve had to endure over the years. I don’t want to spoil the end, but there is one EASY RIDER that makes an appearances and puts the nasty bikers to their place.
There’s not much to the DVD extras here, just some alternate ending, and some deleted scene with the potion toy have commentary by director Walt Becker and writer Brad Copeland. There’s also some featuretters, like how “How to get your Wife to Buy You a Motorcycle” and a featurette on the making of the movie. Not much frills.

WILD HOGS deserves a watch because for young and old, it’ll seem like a neat introspective into ourselves as each one of the characters reflects a little bit of the hog in all of us.