Cinematical

I'm surrounded by four gregarious guys who ride Harleys, blow up bars and throw down with a rival biker gang named the "Del Fuegos." And strangely, I'm not afraid of getting my ass kicked. Perhaps that's because the aforementioned Harley pilots are John Travolta, Tim Allen, Martin Lawrence and William H. Macy, and they did all of that stuff in their new road-trip comedy Wild Hogs. The guys and I are in Boston, the second stop on their Wild Hogs promotional tour. Yesterday, they were in Atlanta, where long-haired, bearded, diehard bikers turned out in droves of thousands to follow the foursome as they cruised the streets on their hogs. A similar event -- a police-escorted bike ride from Beantown's Four Seasons Hotel to City Hall -- had been planned for later today, but alas the 18-degree temperatures and 40 mile-per-hour winds have crapped all over that plan like a pigeon on a motorcycle helmet. Instead, John, Tim, Martin and Bill will arrive for a ceremony with the Mayor Thomas Menino in big, warm, comfortable Suburbans. (More on that later).

For now, however, we're sitting in a warm hotel room at the Four Seasons listening to Allen work on one hell of a hilarious non sequitur in his patented Tim "The Tool Man" Taylor manly yawp: "I'm Spartacus. Who's Spartacus? I'm tired of dying. I'm tired of eating soup. Who's Spartacus? I'm Spartacus!" He's got me and his Hogs co-stars in stitches -- that is, until he blurts out, "Does it involve a spanking?!" Then the silence hits -- but only briefly, before another bout of prolonged laughter.

Two minutes in, and it's already clear that these four guys don't just play pals in a movie; they are pals. When Travolta claims, "I have to edit everything Tim says," Allen retorts with a comical threat in his best Arnold Schwarzenegger accent. And when asked who the most skilled rider is, they bust each others chops mercilessly one moment, then dole out Coca-Cola-sweet compliments the next.

Their rapport is actually not surprising: There's a lot of male bonding that occurs when four middle-aged weekend warriors leather-suit up, jump on their Harleys and hit the open road for a cross-country trip to the Pacific Ocean, as these guys do in Hogs. Although their reasons for setting out on this trans-American odyssey vary -- one is broke and going through a divorce, one has lost his sense of adventure, one has an overbearing wife and needs to grow some cojones, and the last one talks more to his computer than he does to women -- a single theme runs through each character's motivation: They need to loosen the vice grip of their middle-class suburban existence and -- in the words of Matthew McConaughey in Dazed and Confused -- start L-I-V-I-N'. In other words, they're all experiencing midlife crises, big time.

Here's what this unlikely group of friends had to say to me about committing bike-riding blunders, getting older and, of course, L-I-V-I-N' ...

*On Motorcycle-Riding Experience*
Of the four stars, Travolta was the only one who had serious experience on a Harley prior to making the film. Allen was an accomplished rider, but on sport bikes, which are a completely different beast. Macy was a novice rider. And Lawrence had never even straddled a seat.

Lawrence: I had to take lessons. And they took us up in mountains and all that and said, "Find your way back!"

Travolta: Martin was the cutest on the bike by far.

Macy: I'm actually the best rider, when all is said and done.

*On Tim Allen's Big Spill*
Although Macy's character Dudley is responsible for 99 percent of the group's biking faux pas in the film, surprisingly it was expert rider Allen who ate the most asphalt (and sand and cacti) during the shoot.

Lawrence: Tim took a spill. OK, I said it.

Macy: Tim goes roaring by at like 70 miles an hour and the whole team is going, "There's no way he's making that turn."

Allen: It was like simultaneous. I'm going, 'Hey, look how cool I look. Hmmm ... there's no possible way I can make that turn.

Macy: It was the funniest. Your face went from "Hey guys, look at me" to "Oh God, I'm gonna die." But you were still smiling.

Allen: Bill thought it was real funny when I would go down, but I took some real chances on the bike that these wimps would not.

*On Instant Karma*
When Allen recounts another accident, in which he got his glove caught in his bike's brake and drove under a tractor-trailer, Travolta suggests negligence was not to blame for the incident.

Travolta: It's very dangerous to do something bad and then ride a motorcycle. And Tim would often do something bad and then ride his motorcycle. And then you get instant karma.

Allen: Well, John took off because they didn't yell cut, so we all had to hurry up to catch him because it was part of the scene. It was a really peculiar no-cut scene. It was one of those where we were like, "I guess we just continue ..." And I got my glove caught in the accelerator and the brake because I didn't have time to put it on because Yo-Yo decides to take off.

Travolta: But then you have to say: What did he do prior to that? And then you understand the glove getting caught.

*On Travolta's Strange Choice*
According to Travolta, an actor's choice of how to play a role is often dictated by certain key scenes in a film. "You read it, and then you say, 'OK, what are we really gonna do when we get in there?'" One such scene occurs about halfway through Wild Hogs when Travolta's Woody accidentally blows up a biker bar.

Travolta: I see this big explosion that I set off in the bar and I didn't realize how big it was going to be -- and that decided the rest of my performance. I said, "Oh my God, that's so huge! I could have killed people."

Allen: None of saw this. None of us saw the actual stunt, so it looked like he was a freaking lunatic.

Travolta: They didn't understand my choice.

Macy: We had no idea.

Travolta: I was so psychotic.

Allen: He was so psychotic the whole movie, and it really works well. At the time it looked like John was having a nervous breakdown.

Travolta: And their reactions made it funnier. You know they're asking, "As an actor, why is he making that choice?"

Allen: Well, he wouldn't explain anything to anybody. John's in his own world.

*On Their Own Midlife Crises*
Even successful actors have midlife crises, as is evidenced by testimonials from Lawrence, Allen, Travolta and Macy.

Lawrence: I guess I have -- if you can call a coma a midlife crisis. Now, to come through that and get on a bike -- that's a little insane.

Allen: You're allowed in the movie world to kind of move through it. There's really no reason to have it because you can play out any kind of fantasy you want.

Travolta: We're so privileged that it's almost like anti-midlife crisis for a group like us. Although I have to admit that when I turned 50, the improv speech that I give about "How many summers do we have left?" came from the feeling I had when that happened. I thought, "Boy, I never thought of it before, but really what do I have?" And that was a funny moment because of Tim's reaction. Now I'm desperate because I think I've killed all the people in the bar and I want us all to hide. And I'm saying, "You never know how many summers you have left." And I mean THAT summer. We're gonna die THIS summer.

Macy: It's tough for an actor, too. You see old films and see yourself getting older as it goes on.

Allen: I told that to a guy that I know that's lost his wife and he's really bummed out. And I said, "How many summers you got left?" That was told to me on a road rally by a guy who owns waste management. I was on the phone going, "C**ksucker! F**k everybody!" And he goes, "Tim, how many summers you suppose you have left?" And I go, "WHAAAAT?! What the f**k did you say that for?" My whole day was shot.

On that thought-provoking note, we call it a wrap so that John, Tim, Martin and Bill can prepare for the afternoon's main event -- namely the aforementioned ceremony outside (yes, outside in the sub-20 temps) City Hall. When the four of them arrive, an eclectic crowd of press, lunch-breaking Bostonians and leather-bedecked bikers who belong to Boston's HOG (Harley Owners Group) has assembled to greet them. After a short intro by Mayor Menino, Tim Allen warms the cold crowd up with a few jokes, and then the four co-stars present the mayor and the Boston Police Department's Mobile Operations Unit (a fancy way of saying "cops who ride Harleys") with a donation of $10,000. In gratitude, Mayor Menino proclaims February 7 "Wild Hogs Day in the city of Boston!"

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