Wild Hogs

The other night, in between sending and receiving movies from Netflix we ended up with the kids in the living room with us for a few minutes and watched this movie.

From 2007 the movie had plenty of star power but did not receive good reviews. Tim Allen, John Travolta, Martin Lawrence and William Macy star as four middle aged friends who enjoy riding motorcycles together. As middle age settles heavily on them, boring jobs, demanding spouses, and realizing that the lives they have are not what they expected in their younger days they decide that they must do something to break out. In short they have become responsible, and thus boring, adults.

Woody, played by Travolta, urges them to take a cross country motorcycle trip. All agree and off they go. William H Macy plays Dudley, a computer programmer, and nerd of the group. Tim Allen is a dentist and Martin Lawrence a salesman whose wife has him on a very short leash.

The movie is not great. A few moments are funny, Macy is probably the actor with the strongest performance, playing against his normal type, and he does a good job. This movie is a far cry from The Cooler or Fargo.

Ray Liotta plays the leader of a real motorcycle gang who takes a strong exception to what he deems are pretenders. A funny scene is when he guesses and then criticizes the lifestyles that the Wild Hogs are stepping away from and when Dudley, Macy's character, amazed at his accuracy asks him " what color am I thinking of?" As I said the movie has it's moments.

Marissa Tomei plays a waitress who becomes a love interest of Dudley. Travolta and Allen are a bit muted in this movie, Lawrence has a few moments of over the top acting but Macy really is the strongest. Tomei is generally underrated, and enjoyable in this as well.

The reviews in some cases were pretty nasty. I surely did not think it was that bad. It was what it was, cute in some places, with some broad farce, but generally entertaining.

A special nod should go to Peter Fonda who has a small part in the movie as, what else, a legendary motorcycle figure. If your movie is about motorcycles and you get Peter Fonda in it cannot be all bad.

Date Night

Another movie of my wife's choice last night from Netflix. We watched a movie on a Thursday night, this be a daring event on a schoolnight after the kids were in bed. Well all the kids save my oldest who continued to blast the television from the living room.

Steve Carell is very funny and Tina Fey has become the sexy librarian it is ok to think is funny and cute. This movie started out funny and certain pieces were funny.

For example the scenes prior to the plot takeoff were cute and identifiable. The scenes when they are dining out and play a couples game of trying to come up with a " story" about the other couples in the restaurant was funny both times.

However the movie, a case of mistaken identity gone crazy becomes implausible in the extreme. I can suspend disbelief in an action movie but do not go to many for that reason, and I can suspend it in a comedy when a putz actor ends up with a supermodel but to suspend belief in an action comedy movie proved a bit much.

The movie was fine but the only part I would remember and talk to my brethren about would be Ray Liotta's scene as a mob boss. Predictable yes, but any nod to Good Fellas is good with me.