Sunday, December 04, 2005

Dukes of Hazzard 2005 - A Highlight Reel Refresh

The Dukes of Hazzard (2005)





JUST SOME GOOD OL' BOYS

U.S. Release Date August 5, 2005
Rotten Tomatoes 🍅 14%
Audience Score 🍿 46%

Production Dossier

Financials

Budget: $53 Million

Box Office: $111.1 Million

Opening Weekend: $30.7 Million

Technical Specs

Cinematography: Lawrence Sher

Studio: Village Roadshow Pictures

Runtime: 104 Minutes

Primary Filming Locations

Clinton, Louisiana: The finale sequence at the courthouse was filmed at Courthouse Square.
Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University served as the college campus.
New Orleans, LA: The drifting scene with the General Lee was shot at Lee Circle.
French Settlement, LA: Used for various rural Hazzard County backdrops.

Official Synopsis

Bo and Luke Duke are cousins who tear through Hazzard County transporting moonshine for Uncle Jesse. When they discover that Boss Hogg is evicting farmers to sell their land for a coal mining operation, they team up with cousin Daisy to save the family farm and stop the corrupt commissioner.

Cast & Crew

  • Director: Jay Chandrasekhar
  • Cast: Johnny Knoxville (Luke), Seann William Scott (Bo), Jessica Simpson (Daisy), Willie Nelson (Uncle Jesse), Burt Reynolds (Boss Hogg).

Fun Facts

  • Rejected Cameos: Original stars Tom Wopat, John Schneider, and Catherine Bach were offered cameos but declined because they hated the screenplay.
  • Cheap Wheels: Two Dodge Chargers were purchased for $2 total, with an agreement to sell them back to the original owner for $1.25 each after filming.
  • Rating Regret: Seann William Scott later felt the movie should have been R-rated to better suit the comedy style of the cast.
  • Stunt Training: Many car jumps were filmed at an LSU agricultural research station leased specifically for production.

Original Review (Dec 4, 2005)

Oh....Them Dukes!!! Them Dukes!!!

The good news about the movie version for The Dukes of Hazzard is that it's faithful to the original television show. The bad news is that the people that were fans of the original show are no longer 12 years old.

While watching the movie, I was surprised by how much I remembered about the old t.v show. I remembered that they were moonshine runners. I remember that the show was narrated by some country dude. I remember that the Blonde hillbilly drove the car, and the black haired dude was the one that kicked eveyone's ass. I remember that Daisy was a cock tease, who always used her goods to distract the cops while the boys were up to no good. And I remembered that there were a lot of friggin car chases which ended with the General Lee jumping off a ramp over a barn or some shit. I also remember that the voice of the Car was the butler on that Magnum P.I. show....oh shit.. my bad....wrong show.

Anyways, when I saw all that shit happening in the movie, I had a nice flash of nostalgia.....that faded about 10 minutes into the movie. The biggest problem with the movie is that the original show wasn't exactly sophisticated stuff. From what I remember the show had very little going on. It would start with a big car chase, then the episode's problem would show up, usually involving Boss Hogg's fat ass, and then it would end with a big car chase with the Duke boys and Daisy making Boss Hogg. and his cops look like dumb ass rednecks.

In other words the greatest show in the world for 12 year olds.

I'm not really sure what the studio was expecting to accomplish with this new movie version. I know it didn't really do that well at the box office. The question is why would they expect it to be a hit? I mean, how could one possibly make a great movie out of such a thin premise. My theory is that the studio heads just wanted to see someone sexy wear those damn Daisy Duke shorts. I mean that's all they ever talked about were those damn Daisy Duke shorts. I remember Brittany Spears wanted to do the movie so she could wear the shorts, and then Mandy Moore was supposed to do it, and then finally Jessica Simpson got the role. Then all the ads, posters and publicity was about Jessica Simpson wearing the damn shorts. I think the special features on the DVD are all about those Daisy Duke shorts. There's also a music video with Jessica where she shakes her ass wearing Daisy Dukes.

I mean I'm not complaining I like to see girls wear those shorts, but I can pick up a Maxim magazine for that. I don't need to watch a full length movie with a cock tease wearing those shorts. I'm used to watching porn where they wear the shorts for about half a minute, and then they fucking come off. Because most people don't like to get cock teased for two hours.

The truth is the only reason why I watched the movie was because the Broken Lizard gang made it, and to tell the truth, I'm a sucker for toilet humor. Unfortunately, this movie didn't have a lot of toilet humor. Just a lot of car chases, and Jessica Simpson scratching her ass, and bending over. Disappointing cause I liked Club Dread, I know I'm probably in minority, but I had some good laughs watching that movie, and it kept me entertained the whole time.

Burt Reynolds basically does a cameo in the movie as Boss Hogg. Johnny Knoxville and Seann William Scott are affable guys in the movie, they don't have much to do though, pretty much sit in the car, and look around so I can't really rip them to shreds cause they are just doing what they're supposed to do. This ain't Hamlet they're doing here, it's the Dukes of friggin Hazzard.

One sequence I will criticize though is where the Duke boys find out that Boss Hogg wants to turn Hazard county into a coal mine. They find out, when a sample they test blows up in the boys face....leaving them with black faces. They run off into the General Lee and drive into the hood. If you don't know already, the General Lee happens to have a big confederate flag on the roof of the car. So of course when they drive into the hood, they see some Afro-Americans hanging out, who mistake the whole scene for racist taunting......yeah real funny.....black face humor.

Horrible.

I expected more from EVERYONE involved. Just not funny.

Stick to the dick and fart jokes Broken Lizard your good at that. No need to change the formula.
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1 comment:

  1. I turned it off after about 15 or 20 minutes. Didn't even bother to skip to see if there were any really good parts featuring Jessica Simpson. What a horrible waste of time.

    I worked on the entire first two seasons of this show for DVD at my old job, and watched a whole mess o' episodes over and over again. It's an incredibly dumb show, which this movie captures perfectly, but because it's a big-budget movie with stars made 20 years later, it's much much dumber.

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