Movie Review The Dukes of Hazzard

Dukes of Hazzard (2005) 

Directed by Jay Chandrasekhar

Written by Gy Waldron, John O'Brien 

Starring Johnny Knoxville, Seann William Scott, Jessica Simpson 

Release Date August 5th, 2005 

Published August 5th, 2005 

Critics like myself are a pretentious lot. However when the majority of critics write a negative review of a TV remake like the Dukes of Hazzard it is not out of artistic pretension. Indeed the film in the classic critical sense is not very good. However there is something about Dukes that even this jaded and pretentious critic found very entertaining. Maybe it's nostalgia, I was a fan of the show as a kid, or maybe it's the enthusiasm of its creators and actors that comes off the screen in waves. Whatever it is, I liked Dukes of Hazzard.

Bo and Luke Duke (Johnny Knoxville and Seann William Scott) are good ol' boy cousins tearing around Hazzard County, Georgia in their bright orange '69 Charger, The General Lee. Whether they are running moonshine (do southerners still make moonshine?) for their Uncle Jesse (Willie Nelson), or defending the honor of their cousin Daisy (Jessica Simpson) in a bar fight, the Duke boys always seem to be getting in trouble.

The latest bit of trouble the boys are in once again involves their nemesis Sheriff Roscoe P. Coltrane (M.C Gainey) and his boss, County Commissioner, Boss Hogg (Burt Reynolds). In a plot that feels directly lifted from the TV series, Boss Hogg is stealing the land of Hazzard County farmers, including the Duke's farm, so he can strip mine for coal buried beneath it. Only the Duke boys can stop Boss Hogg by winning a dirt track car race and generally creating havoc throughout the land in the General Lee.

Director Jay Chandrasekhar (Super Troopers, Club Dread) is really not much of a director in the classic sense. He has no distinctive directorial style, no real sense of rhythm in his storytelling and, in the case of this film, leaves much of the real direction to the stunt coordinators who filmed the car chases that compose some 90 percent of the film.

That said, Chandrasekhar does have a talent for creating a good time atmosphere. For all of his lack of artistry Chandrasekhar in his previous films with his comedy team Broken Lizard created atmospheres that made obvious just how much fun both cast and crew had making the movies. That same enthusiasm radiates from Dukes of Hazzard in the joyous performances of stars Johnny Knoxville and Seann William Scott as well as the supporting cast that includes David Koechner from Anchorman and Broken Lizard member Kevin Heffernan.

Maybe the most important element of why I enjoyed Dukes of Hazzard is the nostalgia factor. Mr. Chandrasekhar's fealty to the TV show is astonishing. Where TV remakes like The Honeymooners and Bewitched ditched the source material, Dukes Of Hazzard embraces it's TV parentage with zeal. The plot is seemingly a direct lift from the show and Mr. Chandrasekhar's Hazzard County almost perfectly mimics the Hazard of memory. This won't do anything for non-fans but if you loved the show like I did as a kid you can't help but get caught up in the nostalgic vibe.

If I have one major issue with the film it is the casting of Jessica Simpson as Daisy Duke. There is an insidiousness to her casting and the way she is used in the film. Ms. Simpson seems taken advantage of, something that may just be my perception based on her well-cultivated dim bulb persona. Ms. Simpson simply cannot act-- not that a film that is ninety percent car chases requires acting-- but I really felt that she did not know what she had gotten herself into. The script and direction never ask her to perform anything close to acting, rather she is simply paraded in front of the camera in skimpy outfits as if she were there as an advertisement for a strip club rather than an actual member of the cast.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed ogling Ms. Simpson as much as anyone but the exploitation left me with a sickening feeling. Nevertheless, when Dukes of Hazzard is working its good time vibe as opposed to its exploitative one, it's a whole lot of fun. The car chases are spectacular and most of all the car itself is spectacular. Dukes of Hazzard is not a great movie, but as a nostalgic waste of a Friday night, it works.

Movie Review: 'Beerfest'

Beerfest (2006) 

Directed by Jay Chandrasekhar

Written by Kevin Heffernan, Steve Lemme, Paul Soter, Eric Stolhanske

Starring Jay Chandrasekhar, Kevin Heffernan, Steve Lemme, Paul Soter, Nat Faxon

Release Date August 25th, 2006 

Published August 27th, 2006

I must admit that I have never been a fan of the comedy stylings of the Broken Lizard comedy troupe. Their brand of frat boy juvenilia falls somewhere between the South Park guys shrill nihilism and fingernails on a blackboard as far as I'm concerned. So seeing their new film Beerfest, about an underground beer drinking Olympics, was not something that excited me.

My worst fears for how bad I assumed Beerfest would be were confirmed within the first 15 minutes of the film. Beerfest is yet another example of Broken Lizard's almost nihilistic approach to comedy, all grotesquerie, no real humor

Jan and Todd Wolfhouse (Paul Soter and Eric Stolhanske) have just lost their beloved grandfather. To honor his memory, at the request of their grandma (Cloris Leachman), they will fly to Germany to scatter gramps' ashes at his favorite spot Oktoberfest. Once in Germany the boys find themselves taken to an underground lair where a secret international beer drinking contest known as Beerfest is underway.

The German team, it turns out, are cousins of Jan and Todd. However, a family secret divides these clans and Jan and Todd find that grandpa and grandma have secrets that fall under the category of 'too much information', ick! To fight back against their evil German cousins and reclaim the name Wolfhouse from international infamy, the brothers decide to start the very first American beer drinking team.

Hooking up with some old college friends, including a scientist nicknamed Fink (Steve Lemme), a big fat hog named Landfill (Kevin Heffernen) and a former college ladies man and beer pong champion Barry (Jay Chandreskhar) who, in a perfect example of the broken lizard style of humor, has become an alcoholic male prostitute. Barry's current gig has him showing his privates to strangers for a dollar, hilarious gag or desperate cry for help from whoever wrote the bit? You decide, I'm going with the latter.

That is the problem with much of Broken Lizard's comedy stylings. So much of what they think is funny are half baked ideas that are often more grotesque than humorous. Take the introduction of the Fink character. His job as a scientist finds him masturbating frogs for cloning purposes. The gag at the end of the scene after the frog has climaxed is Fink lighting a cigarette, ho ho, how clever.

And that frog gag is likely the funniest bit in the movie. Funny in the kind of sad desperate way that marks much of Beerfest. The gags are all sad attempts to either out gross or out sick the likes of Jim Carrey or the Farrelly brothers. They achieve the grossness and sickness but they cannot find what makes it possible Carrey or the Farrelly's to push that gross envelope. There is no heart to Beerfest.

The Farrelly's especially make an effort to bring a heart to even their grossest outings. Broken Lizard does not do heart so gross is all they've got and for me that is not nearly enough.

I did not laugh once during Beerfest. Not once. I did not actively try not to laugh. I saw the film after watching the truly disappointing Idlewild and hoped that Beerfest might raise my spirits after such a thorough disappointment. Alas, Beerfest only worsened an already bad day at the movies by not providing one humorous moment.

From Donald Sutherland's shockingly awful cameo as the boys late grandfather to jokes about Cloris Leachman and a sausage to the masturbating frogs, there is nothing remotely funny about Beerfest. Even the drunkenness, the loads and loads of alcohol that is consumed by these characters fails to elicit a single laugh.

The Broken Lizard comedy troupe is simply too juvenile, too sophomoric and too unfunny to continue making movies. Dump them into a comedy central series next to equally unfunny comics like the blue collar comedy guys and shuffle them off the big screen. Their brand of humor belongs on late night cable where I can choose to ignore it in favor of yet another VH1 celebreality series.

Broken Lizard no longer belongs on the big screen where as a critic I am forced by job title to acknowledge their existence.