Release Date: 29 September 2005

Synopsis :

Yeeeeeeeee Haaaaaaawwww!

Fun-lovin’, fast-drivin’, good ol’ boy cousins Bo (SEANN WILLIAM SCOTT) and Luke (JOHNNY KNOXVILLE) Duke are back on the road and up to no good, along with their cousin Daisy Duke (JESSICA SIMPSON), proud owner of the shortest shorts in the South. Hazzard County boasts some of the most axel-busting back roads, hair-raising moonshine, and best-looking farm girls in all of Georgia – and the Duke boys enjoy all three. Frequently.

The Duke family’s business is moonshine, and the boys’ Uncle Jesse (WILLIE NELSON) concocts the tastiest brew in Dixie. More often than not, the boys find themselves on the wrong side of the law as they race to make their deliveries, leading the sheriff’s department on some truly wild goose chases in their infamous orange Dodge Charger, the General Lee.

After a long day on the job, there’s nothing like relaxing with an ice cold beer at Hazzard County’s finest drinking establishment, The Boar’s Nest, where Daisy waits tables. From time to time, an out-of-towner makes the mistake of getting a little too familiar with the most beautiful girl in Hazzard County. They quickly find out (the hard way) that Daisy isn’t just a pretty face – she kicks ass like a Duke, and with Bo and Luke in the mix, that usually means a good old-fashioned knock-down, drag-out bar brawl.

But it’s not all moonshine and farm girls these days – when Bo and Luke discover evidence that their neighbors’ properties are being unlawfully seized by crooked commissioner Boss Hogg (BURT REYNOLDS), their only chance to protect their hometown is to put the pedal to the metal in a last-ditch scheme to save Hazzard County.

Movie Review:

Apparently, 2005 is the official year for remakes. “The Dukes of Hazzard” joins the party, making yet another movie you do not need to see. The movie opens with Bo (Seann William Scott) and Luke Duke (Johnny Knoxville) delivering moonshine for their Uncle Jesse (Willie Nelson) in their tangerine 1969 Dodge Charger (nicknamed General Lee). In the next five minutes, they will fight for their cousin Daisy’s (Jessica Simpson) honour, perform too many car stunts with General Lee and rub shoulders with the baddest man in the whole damn town, Boss Jefferson Davis Hogg (Burt Reynolds), and his sidekick, Sheriff Roscoe P. Coltrane (M.C. Gainey). The rest of the movie? Rinse, lather, repeat.

Alright, it wasn’t that bad. Credit must go to the two leads for being sufficiently affable and indeed the rest of the cast, most notably Willie Nelson, for giving up some laughs. Seann William Scott and Johnny Knoxville make an adequate if increasingly tepid pair, but they ultimately lack the charm to make a hoot out of the pedestrian script. Perhaps they should pick up some tips from Willie Nelson, so endearing in his delivery that his impossibly cheesy lines become easily the most amusing parts of the entire show. And he appears in fewer scenes than I can count on both hands.

The much-talked-about Jessica Simpson as Daisy Duke appears minimally in the movie, to the dismay and/or delight of moviegoers everywhere, but when she does, let’s just say she isn’t exactly equipped in the clothing department (again, to the dismay and/or delight…). As for her acting debut, it’s really not so much “acting” than “flaunting her body”, so be prepared to see Simpson in a whole lot of other flimsy movie cameos.

Yet, silly characters with cheeky lines can only go so far; it comes to a point where the entire movie becomes all but an elaborate car stunt, and not a very good one at that. There are scenes after scenes of impossible turns, close shaves, cars flying in the air and nifty tricks like that, but all of that barely got any adrenaline pumping. I’m not one for mighty explosions and loud blockbusters, but if the movie is going to label itself an action film, I would expect more than this. It isn’t shoddy work, I assure you; “The Dukes of Hazzard” just lacks oomph (which could be argued as being worse than merely being shoddy). Simple put, there’s nothing much to see or get excited about in this movie, and as the soundtrack blasts away, I’m reminded of an immortal line, “…full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

For a production like this, there is nothing much to nitpick at since everything is at best and worse, mediocre – I think I laughed more during the bloopers/credits than I did in the preceding 106 minutes. Compared to flat-out terrible films, which become at the very least infamous for being appalling bad, such movies are perhaps worse sinners in that they’re insipid, pointless and immediately forgettable. In terms of filmmaking, “The Dukes of Hazzard” is neither lazy nor half-hearted, the problem is that there is just nothing much to begin with in the first place. So why does Hollywood continue picking such productions up? The answer, quite simply, is that I do not know.

Movie Rating:

(I could say that the movie’s all brawn and no brains, but then I’d still have to rethink the ‘brawn’ part. In a word – ‘meh’)

Review by Angeline Chui