Starring:
Johnny Knoxville, Seann William Scott, Jessica Simpson, Willie Nelson, Burt Reynolds, Lynda Carter, M.C. Gainey, Nikki Griffin and Michael Weston

Director:
Jay Chandrasekhar

Running Time:
106 mins

Out to buy on DVD 09/01/06

• Some excellent car chases
• Jessica Simpson makes a great Daisy Duke

• Johnny Knoxville and Seann William Scott are badly cast as Bo and Luke Duke
• Supporting Cast underused
• Another poor TV to Big Screen adaptation

"Just the Good Old Boys..."

Making there way they only way they know how, Bo (William Scott) and Luke (Knoxville) Duke delivered moonshine around Hazzard County and were the thorn in the sides of Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane (Gainey) and Boss Hogg (Reynolds). When Boss Hogg takes the Duke farm after the sheriff plants a moonshine still in Uncle Jessie's (Nelson), the good old boys go on the run and with the help of their cousin Daisy (Simpson), try find a way of getting the Duke farm back.

Hollywood's obsession with remaking old TV shows for the big screen continues but can 'The Dukes of Hazzard' make that jump?

Nostalgia can be a funny thing. Anyone who grew up in the early 1980s will remember the adventures of Bo and Luke Duke as they tore through the county in the General Lee. Everybody wanted to be behind the wheel of that orange Dodge Charger as it made the most impossible jumps to escape Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane and his deputies. Every week the Dukes stopped another one of Boss Hogg's profiteering schemes but ended up in one or two car chases along the way. The premise for the show was simple but it worked as light hearted, throwaway entertainment that filled the TV channels in the 80s. The problem is that this simple approach doesn't work too well with modern audiences.

The big screen version of 'The Dukes of Hazzard' follows the formula of the TV show to the letter but the problem is that this doesn't really offer the audience much in the way of plot. In fact the minute story, which is basically another of Boss Hogg's money making schemes, is just a way of filling in the gaps between the chase sequences. This might have been all well and good in the 1980s but modern cinema audiences want more.

The essence of the show may well be captured perfectly but some of the casting lets the film down. By having two comedic actors in the roles of Bo and Luke doesn't seem to work. While we are not expecting these to be Oscar winning roles, the casting of Johnny Knoxville and Seann William Scott just doesn't seem right. You can't really take ever of them seriously, not even as womanising, trouble causing moonshine smugglers because they basically playing themselves not the characters. M. C. Gainey also doesn't capture the essence of bungling Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane and just comes across as more of a thug-like henchman. Burt Reynolds fairs a little better as the nefarious Boss Hogg with the white suit really suiting him but he doesn't have enough screen time to make as big an impact as the character should have. The character that really captures the essence of the show is Daisy Duke, played by the singer turned actress Jessica Simpson in her first big screen role. She is stunningly beautiful and the character plays on this to get what she wants.

With only the extremely well choreographed car chases making the film watchable, 'The Dukes of Hazzard' is another TV to movie adaptation that fails to impress. This is probably because the show itself wasn't that great in the first place and the simple premise of the show just isn't enough to engage modern more story hungry audiences. Maybe it's time those good old boys got real jobs and grew up.