On The Road To Nowhere.

There is only one good thing in WILD HOGS: Peter Fonda. And he’s a cameo ten minutes before the end.

Naif director Walt Becker helms this listless, laughless tale of four suburban friends pushing middle-age crisis who hit the open road as wannabe bikers to taste “freedom” and come smack up against real bikers and get their asses kicked, learning the obligatory life-lessons about friendship, loyalty and how to take an ass-kicking.

John Travolta, Tim Allen, Martin Lawrence and William H. Macy are four solid friends, Sunday riders who decide to hit the open road on their weekend machines to alleviate the boredom of their suburban existences. Unfortunately, it does nothing to alleviate OUR boredom.

Calling themselves Wild Hogs, due to Allen’s wife having sewed the patches onto their leathers, they eschew their safe coffeehouses (where every faux biker pretends toughness before discussing chamomile and chiffon) for the dangerous freeway, where bugs, crows and curbs are their greatest enemies….

The banal gay gags and indolent plot come to a screeching halt when the four come across a real bike gang called the Del Fuegos, led by Ray Liotta, who send them packing. Travolta accidentally blows up the Del Fuego bar, which brings down a vendetta on the four Sundays. Trying to hide in a small town, they are discovered and get the aforementioned chamomile kicked out of them, with Travolta overacting enough for Charlton Heston to call and tell him to dial it down to a 7.

Just as Liotta is about to deliver the justifiable and wholly welcome killing stroke on our Sundays, warning them “Stay off the road! It’s my highway!” Peter Fonda, as an O.G., thunders up and saves the necks of the Sundays, rasping at Liotta, “It’s MY highway!”

And everything is cool. And that’s all I want to remember of this joyless joyride.

END