We had a few laughs watching this, because we needed to. But on another day we might have kicked in the screen. The theme is touchy-feelie guys' get-together-and-let-your-hair-down weekends, except it takes two reels of lightweight "Carry On" slapstick to get the guys into a huddle round a campfire in the forest depths, and once there the revelations hold no surprises. All four characters are one-dimensional and they have few, if any, really good gag-lines. At the end the scroll reveals that it is a movie with a message, as the producers remind us that it's still not illegal to trade in grizzly bear parts in North America. Don't get me wrong, I fully support such a sentiment, but this preachy message at the end of the picture came across lamely, as if they were trying to make an otherwise ineffectual production seem worthwhile. Furthermore, the picture makes a particularly transparent effort to appear American, branding Vancouver in the first few frames as Seattle. Both sides of the border are belittled by this unconvincing charade. I can think of a long list of other themes and situations that would merit spending money and wit to dramatise. You have to engage in a "friends and family" suspense of ridicule to extract a few chuckles from this one. I'd say thumbs down to all the film subsidy bodies for such a mediocre effort.
Review of The Wild Guys
