An amazing amount of hype precedes “The Dukes of Hazzard,” yet another movie version of a 1970s TV series. The stars have been on all the talk shows and magazine covers, the merchandising tie-ins are in place, the music video has been out there.
| Non-event: A movie based on the 1970s TV series, about two Southern cousins (Seann William Scott, Johnny Knoxville) who bomb around the backwoods in the their orange Dodge Charger. It’s not funny, but it has a lot of product placement, including Jessica Simpson.
Rated: PG-13 rating is for language, subject matter. Now showing: tk |
Plus, a politician who used to play “Cooter” on the show has denounced the movie for its lack of family values, and he doesn’t seem too crazy about the length of Jessica Simpson’s cut-off jeans, either.
The movie itself is awful, but that hardly seems the point. These days the job of selling is the real art of Hollywood, and “Dukes” has been sold brilliantly.
The thing that occupies the screen for an hour and 45 minutes or so concerns cousins Bo and Luke Duke (Seann William Scott and Johnny Knoxville), a couple of good ol’ boys who like to bomb around the backwoods delivering moonshine. The beverage is manufactured by their Uncle Jesse (Willie Nelson).
The boys spend their days rhapsodizing over their orange Dodge Charger, named General Lee, and slapping each other in the face with a phone book. There’s also the occasional barroom brawl, with another cousin, Daisy (Jessica Simpson), participating.
I guess the movie has a plot, a plan by Hazzard County commissioner Boss Hogg (Burt Reynolds) to build a strip mine on the old Duke property. This may be the first time the word “environmentalist” is uttered in Hazzard County, but that’s the story.
The film skitters from one situation to the next. The boys travel to Atlanta for reasons I can’t remember, witnessing college life for the first time. They blow up stuff in a field. They’re surprised when a passer-by shouts, “Hey, you guys late for your Klan meeting?” because they didn’t know Cooter painted the Stars and Bars on the top of their car (a moment that suggests a whole new direction for the film).
“Dukes” was directed by Jay Chandrasekhar, who made “Super Troopers” with his Broken Lizard comedy group. The members of the group pop up in small roles here (Kevin Heffernen has a juicy part, and gives the funniest performance, as a tighty-whitey-wearing local kook). The jokey style never pauses to get serious, which is a small blessing.
The TV show had two heartthrob actors, while the movie has Stifler from “American Pie” and the “jackass” guy. Knoxville has surprisingly little to do, allowing Seann William Scott the craziest stuff.
And what is there to say about Jessica Simpson, who looks like a computer-generated idea of sexiness and acts with the pizzazz of a runner-up in the Miss Auto Parts pageant? Not much more than that, except her role is much smaller than you’d think from the publicity.
“The Dukes of Hazzard” has more product placement than a NASCAR race, but then that’s what this movie is all about. It all seemed more innocent in the ’70s, when Burt Reynolds and Willie Nelson and co-star Joe Don Baker might have piled into a Dodge Charger and caused some real trouble. This one’s just going through the motions.
Jessica Simpson, Johnny Knoxville and Seann William Scott star in “The Dukes of Hazzard.”
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