The Dukes of Hazzard Movie

^{Review by Sunday Simmons}

‘Just some good ol’ boys, never meaning no harm…’ The opening theme of The Dukes of Hazzard, sung by Waylon Jennings, was always a high point of the week for this 80s kid, and with some of the highest TV ratings of the era, it’s not hard to see why. Bo (John Schneider), Luke (Tom Wopat), Uncle Jesse (Denver Pyle) and Daisy (Catherine Bach) took us on some thrilling adventures during the early eighties, with Boss Hogg (Sorrell Booke) and Sherriff Rosco P. Coltrane (James Best) always hot on the tail of their bright orange 1969 Dodge Charger ‘General Lee’.  First airing in 1979 and running until 1985, Dukes of Hazzard was wholesome family fun, action packed, and a thoroughly enjoyable watch. And if you do fancy a watch of the original series (and why wouldn’t you?), then it’s available on Prime. But that’s not why I’m here. Oh no, I’m here to talk about the spin-off movie.

Hitting the big screen in 2005, The Dukes of Hazzard movie proved to be a bit hit and miss with the critics, despite doing well at the box office. Who cares what critics think though? With Seann William Scott (Evolution, Bulletproof Monk) and Jackass star Johnny Knoxville in the roles of the Duke cousins, Bo and Luke, and Jessica Simpson squeezing into the miniscule denim ‘Daisy Duke’ shorts, this film took some of the hottest names of the early 2000s and cast them in a retro classic. Add to that the legendary Burt Reynolds (Cannonball Run) as Boss Hogg, and country music superstar Willie Nelson as Uncle Jesse, and what you have is a bloody brilliant combination.

The plot is classic Dukes of Hazzard. When greedy, corrupt Hazzard County Commissioner Boss Hogg (Reynolds) gets the Dukes evicted from their ancestral farm by planting a moonshine still in Uncle Jesse’s barn, Bo and Luke set out to save their home from his grasp. It turns out the Dukes farm isn’t the only one Hogg has seized, and they uncover a plot to turn the land into a coal mine. What follows is complete mayhem, in a good way. A hot rod race with a souped-up General Lee, jailhouse breakouts, and outrunning the state police … all just part and parcel of a normal day for the Dukes of Hazzard!

Without giving too much away, this really is such an enjoyable watch, and despite being set 20 years after the fact, the humour is much the same. It’s not meant to be politically correct, and it’s all very tongue in cheek – staying true to the original in many ways. That’s what’s great about The Dukes of Hazzard. You know they’re moonshine runners and probably shouldn’t be the ‘good guys’, but they are. And they always foil the dirty deeds of Boss Hogg in the end. In an uncertain world, one of the things most of us love about movies and television is their reliability – the comfort of knowing it’ll all work out fine in the end, if only on the screen.

Fun, action packed, and with bags of heart, The Dukes of Hazzard spin-off movie is a perfect bit of retro escapism, and if you fancy a watch, it’s available on Prime video now!