Ten days ago Ray Liotta was arrested in Los Angeles on suspicion of drunk driving.

If you want insight into what might prompt this sort of behaviour, go see his new movie, Wild Hogs. God willing, you'll be able to find a bar near the theatre afterward.

And a cab stand, of course.

Wild Hogs co-stars John Travolta, Martin Lawrence, Tim Allen and William H. Macy as life-long buddies all feeling the pinch of middle age.

These guys have a variety of health, marriage and financial troubles and decide to go on a motorcycle road trip to get a new perspective on life and to crash into things over and over again. Boy, that's funny.

Once they take off, determined to ride to the coast, it's actually a bit of a relief, because before that the jokes consist of Allen drinking gravy and Macy spilling coffee on his computer, and there's only so hard you can laugh before your sides ache and your head throbs and you start to entertain thoughts of looking up the screenwriter's home address and maybe paying him a little visit with a blunt instrument.

Once the boys are on the road, they have to engage in quite a lot of homophobic humour and poop jokes, which, when you consider a turd like this movie, really confirms how Hollywood is an irony-free zone. Anyway, they get rained on. They burn down their own tent. They go skinny dipping. (Make a note: Macy has a nice bum.)

Then they blow up a biker bar (Liotta plays a tough, tattooed motorcycle maniac) and run for their lives to a small town where Macy's character falls in love with Marisa Tomei -- and the four middle-aged, middle-class guys embrace their friendship and fend off a whole gang of angry bikers and save the town and fix all their relationships with women and find the true meaning of life and no doubt locate the weapons of mass destruction and everything.

The movie has exactly four laughs.

Peter Fonda rides up on a chopper somewhere near the end, unless we hallucinated that part, as if he'd just driven over from the set of Ghost Rider.

Jim Slotek points out that this means Fonda is currently in a movie in which he plays Satan, and then also in this movie, which was apparently green-lit by Satan.

Isn't that a fascinating coincidence.

Make it a double, barkeep.

(This film is rated PG)
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