America’s favorite lawbreakers from down south have returned in the action-comedy THE DUKES OF HAZZARD. The popular 80’s television series has been revamped for the big-screen with funnymen Johnny Knoxville and Seann William Scott as Luke and Bo Duke, Jessica Simpson as Daisy and country singer Willie Nelson as Uncle Jessie. The good ole’ boys are up to their same tricks again: high speed chases, charming women and protecting Hazzard County from the conniving mayor, Boss Hogg and his trusty sidekick Roscoe P. Coltrane.
The difference between my childhood and today’s kids seems to have been captured by the difference between the big-screen THE DUKES OF HAZZARD and the one I grew up on. The innocence and naiveté of the original has been replaced with a profanity-laced, sex-charged and racially-infused version of the Dukes that not only seems inappropriate for family viewing, but condescending in nature. Writers Jonathan Davis and John O’Brien have pulled a “Freaky Friday” on the main characters. Instead of focusing the humor on the bumbling bad guys, Davis and O’Brien decide to make the Dukes the blunt of all the jokes. Not only is this in stark contrast to the original, but makes what little humor there is, seem out of place. The casting for the film is a grand miscalculation, with jokesters Knoxville and Scott creating their own versions of the Duke boys; Simpson providing only eye candy and Nelson phoning-in his performance. This THE DUKES OF HAZZARD doesn’t have the same sense of joy and fun as the old one.
Grade: D
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