January 26th: Movies: "The Dukes of Hazzard"

The difficulty in writing a review of a movie like Warner Brothers recent DVD release “The Dukes of Hazzard” is that as soon as you say something obvious like “this movie stinks worse than a dead hooker” a cadre of rabid stinky-movie apologists will come crawling out from under large rocks and proclaim that the reviewer is just too serious and does not “get” the humor in the film or the point of remaking a bad television show for the big screen. The unintentional boot lickers for the corrupt studio heads responsible for the film go on and on about how “it’s just a fun movie, man, it doesn’t have to like win a Golden Globe or a Grammy or nothin’.” True, but just because a movie has lower standards for production than Brittany Spears has for sexual partners doesn’t mean it has to be awful. “The Dukes of Hazzard” is, of course, awful.

Granted, the movie was never intended to be good in a conventional sense: no one wrote the screenplay, there was no director hired, and the “actors” were allowed to tape performances on cell phone cameras and upload them over the Internet to an editing guy at Warner’s main studio. But even so, most movie-goers expect something for the forty-eight dollars spent on a movie ticket or DVD rental. No plot? Fine, but Jessica Simpson as Daisy Duke had best spend most of the movie in the shower learning the embarrassing joy of a pulsating shower head. Action not great? Okay, but Sean William Jingle Heimer Schmidt (or whatever his name is) as Bo or Luke Duke had best be mangled by a bear or something equally cool. Since a used sausage casing (Burt Reynolds) is playing the villain, he need do nothing more than stand around and wiggle a little, but that is the only part of the movie that needn’t be changed. Something, anything, should be funny at least once in the film to justify the inclusion of the movie in the “comedy” section at the local video hut. A viewer does not need to “get” that dialogue like “Common Luke, let’s fix Boss Hog! Yeah, we gonna fix him!” is not funny… unless Boss Hog is actually a female Golden Retriever and then it’s ironic comedy. Nothing in the film comes close.

Sadly, as bad as the wooden acting, absent direction, lame action sequences, and ho-hum score were, the movie as a whole was not even over-the-top horrible enough to make it unintentionally funny like “Glitter” or “Three Men and a Baby”. Obviously the cast (which is at least enjoyable to watch) was having fun making the movie and that comes across clearly in their constant on-screen smirks (either that or they couldn’t stop staring at Jessica Simpson’s smokin’ hot ass, hard to tell). But all those drooling flunkies reminding reviewers that the film was “fun” are just suffering from a sort of “Stockholm Syndrome” for movie renters where they have come to love the people beating the crap out of them. Sad.

In all fairness, at least to the DVD, there is a “special features” section that makes the disk worth owning. The outtakes are humorous and the music video of Jessica Simpson “singing” a remake of “These Boots Were Made for Walking” will make even post-menopausal heterosexual women card-carrying members of the carpet munchers set. Just don’t expect more than that, and when you “get” it pray they have a cream that will make it go away.

TDQ Staff Writer