Yep – another classic television show comes to the big screen. I am thoroughly convinced that Hollywood is officially out of ideas. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m still looking forward to the feature film versions of Manimal and Cop Rock, but I think some originality might be on order. It is with that in mind that I went with Tavis to see The Dukes of Hazzard. Color me surprised – this film was silly mindless fun. I mean, I wasn’t expecting anything from it, and it was certainly entertaining in the end.
The overly formulaic story involves Boss Hogg (Burt Reynolds) who has an evil plan to take over the town of Hazzard and turn it into a coal strip-mine. Of course, Bo and Luke Duke (Seann William Scott and Johnny Knoxville, respectively) will do all they can to stop them, with the help of Uncle Jesse (Willie Nelson) and Daisy Duke (Jessica Simpson). In the process, lots of car chases will ensue.
And that’s the good thing about this film – for all the cheese, the chases are actually quite well done. Plenty of cars were injured while making this film (a few outtakes and bloopers run during the credits, including a few stunts-gone-wrong), and while at times the camera was too liberal with the zoom lens, the adrenaline certainly got flowing. Simpson’s skimpy outfits didn’t hurt, either! The audience seemed to have a blast too – it was good clean fun.
The music, by Nathan Barr, is perfect for the tone – the nice level of bluesgrass and “rock band” music, with a Southern flair. And let’s not forget the extra special dash of flavor presented by ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons, who plays on a few score cues. No score album is coming, of course, but the song album includes Jessica Simpson’s butchered cover of “These Boots Are Made For Walkin'”. Yikes. This is a matinee movie, or most likely, a rental. Yeeehah.