Pray for the Wildcats

An ok movie about a few executives going to Baja California. Griffith plays a somewhat sadistic boss who orders his execs to go to Baja with him on dirt bikes. The shirts they wore looked like Federation shirts, without the emblems. Too coincidental to just happen.

One of many Hollywood morality-tales against corporate competition, which ironically keeps showbiz going, and, combining the counter-culture biker flick era with city-guys-out-of-their-element DELIVERANCE, what's really behind PRAY FOR THE WILDCATS is a kind of DEATH OF A SALESMAN character in William Shatner, semi-fired from an advertising agency, and whose only chance is relying on bigwig client Andy Griffith...

Famous for playing a good guy on television... which also includes THE BRADY BUNCH Robert Reed and of course Shatner from STAR TREK (clad in familiar Starfleet-yellow) with Marjoe Gortner as the token youngster... there's a bit of Griffith's intimidating FACE IN THE CROWD persona, herein a bully with everything to gain and nothing to lose...

The opposite of Shatner, the buried lead playing a decade older, he's the most reluctant of the three, all practically forced to go on a dirt bike excursion into the desert wilds of Baja, California...

And there's domestic trouble-in-false-paradise back home, which is the primary flaw for WILDCATS including contrived, melodramatic voice-overs from scenes that occurred fifteen minutes earlier, and particularly the sporadic b-stories involving troubled, nagging, soap-operatic wives...

From Angie Dickinson (who'd cheated on Reed with Shatner) to old-school housewife Lorraine Gary (Shatner's) to Gortner's pseudo-progressive girlfriend in Janet Margolin, this could've been an otherwise tightly-wound survival thriller (including the pivotal roundabout death of two hippies) without cutting back and forth from the gritty desert exterior to bland suburban-set interiors...

As if WILDCATS was catered mostly for a mainstream television audience, blunting genuine risks that the men-in-peril story promises, and yet, the entertainment value of an ABC Movie-of-the-Week is ever-present, and you'll want to see just how far Griffith will take things... if only he had the chance to escalate into a nefarious businessman's EASY RIDER than being too quickly hindered by Shatner's BORN TO BE MILD moral compass.

My roommates & I nearly shorted out our TV from the numerous spit-takes we did while watching this hilarious piece of 1970s self important pseudo-zen dreck. I'd read about this campfest for ages and scanned my local late night TV listings for YEARS in search of this elusive turd. Several years ago our local ABC affiliate was known for showing cool flicks for its late night weekend flick (ie "Frogs", "Night of the Lepus", etc). Then one day it happened: at 1:40am on a Saturday night (over 5 years ago) there it was! We had over 15 folks over and the flick did NOT disappoint!

See! Andy Griffith as the silliest & most unthreatening bad guy since Jaye Davidson in "Stargate"!

See! William Shatner sport a variety of things atop his head that only faintly resemble human hair (or anything organic for that matter).

Hear! jaw droppingly inane 1970s psychobabble that makes "Chicken Soup For The Soul" sound like BF Skinner

Feel! Content that any decade was better than the 70s.

For those still reading...the plot surrounds a bunch of middle class mid level a--holes who decide to suck up to their s---head boss (Griffith) by joining him on a cross dessert race that spans California & Mexico. They all wear leather jackets, looking more Christopher Street than anything else. Along the way they stop at a Cantina, get drunk, smoke joints (the sight Robert "Mike Brady" Reed smoke a joint is an image you won't soon forget), start a fight, attempt rape, and just act like a bunch of suburban middle class jack offs. Although I have an excellent copy that I taped off TV I WISH this one would be released on video so the whole world could enjoy its half baked goofiness.

Most TV movies contain new people you have not heard of. In "Pray for the Wildcats". It's an all-star cast. You have Andy Griffith, William Shatner of "Star Trek" fame, and Robert Reed of "The Brady Bunch" fame. Marjoe Gortner joins the crew as 4 men out on a scenic dirt bike run in the Baja. These 4 men are from an ad agency, on an excursion dirt bike ride. The boss Sam Farragut played by Griffith is a no-nonsense but crafty executive who takes the 3 men who wants his position at the firm. The 3 men have their own issues with their lives. One is terminated, another is absent emotionally with his wife, and the other is dealing with an impending family. Talk about going on a ride of their lives. They go on a dangerous trail, stop at a bar in Mexico where the boss meets a hippie couple and accost them. While on the trip, the group runs across them again at the beach, and Sam would pick a fight again only he would disable the van that they rode in. One would decide to turn in their dangerous boss to the authorities, but it would have to be in their own country, the United States. The fired member who was suicidal, confronted him found a new lease on life after the boss jumped the cliff. It's normally not Andy to play an evil character. He's a beloved man back in the 1960's. Shatner and Reed seem to be the reasonable ones in the film. I enjoyed the dirt bikes used in the film. It's all about change and redemption. I enjoyed it very much. The strong cast and plot helped the movie out a lot. Recommended by advertising and adventure seekers alike. 4 out of 5 stars.

Sam Farragut (Andy Griffith) is a rich jerk who fully realizes how powerful this makes him. Instead of just allowing the advertising agency to handle his company, he controls them--insisting the three execs working for him MUST go on a long, long motorbike ride across Baja...or no contract. Once on the trip, Sam turns out to be a real piece of work...an amoral guy who drinks, brawls and womanizes-- acting nothing like the Andy Griffith we've all grown to love. He's a lot like Satan on a cycle!

Among the three execs are Warren (William Shatner), Paul (Robert Reed) and Terry (Marjoe Gortner). All three are extremely flawed men and only Terry seems excited about making this trip. Paul is hiding a secret but Warren's is the darkest of all...he knows he's being terminated from his job and is showing hints that he might use this trip as a way to kill himself! What does come of all this?

This is certainly one of the strangest made for TV movies of its era. That's saying a lot since "The ABC Movie of the Week" often featured weird plots--such as women impregnated by aliens, monsters living in the chimney and reincarnated witches! But this strange is because the folks play so against type...especially Griffith! But is this strangeness any good? Well, yes. Despite the plot being extremely difficult to believe and the actors playing so against type, the basic issues going on in the film are compelling-- especially when Griffith's character does some very horrible things. The only BIG bad thing about all this is the ending with Shatner in the surf--not THAT is amazingly stupid! All in all, well worth seeing just because of its novelty.

By the way, if you are curious who Marjoe Gortner is, read him IMDb biography. This guy was VERY prolific on TV in the 70s but his life before this is really, really interesting. He's not particularly good in this film, however. Also, I think it is very likely NOT unintentional that the four men all sport shirts that look almost exactly like "Star Trek" shirts--red, blue and yellow! You really notice their Trekkiness in the cantina scene...complete with the black collars! Apart from missing the Enterprise emblem, they are almost dead ringers!