The Dukes of Hazzard
By: Mark Runyon | Category: On DVD | 08/14/05 | 12:29 PM
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Grade: C+ | Genre: Comedy
Summary: The Dukes of Hazzard stays true to the original series with a smokin' hot rod, a show stopping Daisy, a chunkable story and good comradery between our hillbilly er...Appalachian American cousins. Fans of the old series will definitely want to check it out. Just don't go in expecting Shakespeare.
Not all movies are created equal, and that was never more true than with the Dukes of Hazzard. I mean do you put Old School and the Godfather side-by-side? Of course not. They are both brilliant films, but it's like comparing a cat to an orange. So with the Dukes you have to walk in with the bar of expectations set pretty low because, let's face it; the TV show was mega cheesy. Don't get me wrong. When I was seven, it was da' bomb. My friend and I used to play Dukes of Hazzard almost everyday, he as Luke, me as Bo -- it was a hair color thing. We'd always single handedly save Hazzard from the dastardly Boss Hogg. Going back and catching the re-runs today, I shake my head at how surface level it all was. It was, and still is, the guilty pleasure at it's purist, and the film version continues the cause with a smokin' hot Daisy, the beautiful rumble of the General Lee and a handful of laughs to spread around a little too thinly. |
There are two things filling the seats for this film: the General Lee and Jessica Simpson's Daisy Duke. The orange '67 Charger, brandished with the rebel flag, is a beautiful thing. It is an immaculately restored piece of machinery that causes you to cringe every time they start rubbing it up against some crappy police cruiser. Show some respect to this American icon. That hemi just roars from under the hood of this redneck, to die for, muscle car. Of course, they launch it through the air for impossible jumps, flip it over on two wheels and take it off road like a truck.
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| The Dukes of Hazzard |
Starring: Johnny Knoxville, Seann William Scott, Jessica Simpson, Burt Reynolds & Willie Nelson
Director: Jay Chandrasekhar |
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| View the Trailer (Quicktime) |
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As far as Jessica goes, all I can say is good Lord. That girl is all that and a bag of chips. Those two hours a day in the gym spent chiseling out that incendiary body were well spent, and the directors take full advantage of it with long slow pans, camera just slobbering over her. For those gentlemen seeing this with their ladies, try to keep your composure and excuse yourself if it just gets out of hand. This woman needs to come with a warning label. As far as her acting debut goes, we don't see much. Her radiant smile and eyebrow perking one liners ("I think something popped up into my under carriage.") reinforce her hood ornament status in this film. She's used relatively sparingly whenever the director needs a healthy shot of those mile of legs. So we'll have to wait for another day to see if she can actually act.
Ah you were wondering about the story. Well it's on par with the writing of the old series; read pretty bad. Bo (Sean 'Stifler' William Scott) and Luke (Johnny 'Jackass' Knoxville) are wily cousins from Hazzard, Georgia; delivering their Uncle Jesse's (Willie Nelson) moonshine while stirring up a whole blueberry patch of trouble. Bo is preparing to kick the General Lee to an unprecedented fifth victory at the annual Hazzard road rally, but local racing legend, Billy Prickett, is being paid by Hogg (Burt Reynolds) to come back and make sure that doesn't happen. Hogg confiscates the Duke ranch after planting a moonshine still in their barn, too lazy to figure out where the actual distillery is. Hogg has been confiscating several parcels of land lately, and the boys head off to university (I'm thinking it was GA Tech) in Atlanta to find a geologist to test the core sample. While they are there, they stop by the sorority house of Bo's old crush for shot of girls in their underwear like something out of prelude to a porn film. They discover Hogg is planning to do some bad things to Hazzard and use a little slight of hand to get away with it. It's the Dukes to the rescue.
My biggest problem with this film is that it runs out of gas about halfway through. The first half hooks us with cheeky nostalgia, Jessica's overwhelming assets and watching Knoxville and Scott fall into the vat of trouble. In the second half, they start to get serious and focus on the story. We never came to the television show for the gripping drama boys. It was the guilty pleasure at its best, a 30-minute block of time to tell reality to take a backseat as we eyed fast cars, a hot chick and buddy hijinks. Forget the plot. It's just the device to get you from one bookend of credits to the next. Revel in the humor and those elements that make this show one of a kind. Also, why get heavyweights like Willie Nelson and Burt Reynolds on board if you are just going to squirrel them away in throwaway roles? Let Willie deliver a couple of lines instead of telling all these Laffy Taffy jokes. Contrary to what Congressman Cooter says, The Dukes of Hazzard stays true to the original series with a smokin' hot rod, a show stopping Daisy, a chunkable story and good comradery between our hillbilly er...Appalachian American cousins. Fans of the old series will definitely want to check it out. Just don't go in expecting Shakespeare. Make sure you stick around for the outtake reel at the end. It's probably the best comedy of the entire film.
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