csua.org/u/cxz -> rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050804/REVIEWS/50725002
E-mail this to a friend "The Dukes of Hazzard" is a comedy about two cousins who are closer'n bro thers, and their car, which is smarter'n they are. It's a retread of a s itcom that ran from about 1979 to 1985, years during which I was able to find better ways to pass my time. Yes, it is still another TV program I have never ever seen. As this list grows, it provides more and more clu es about why I am so smart and cheerful.
Judgi ng by her recent conversation on TV with Dean Richards, Simpson is so re markably uninformed that she should sue the public schools of Abilene, T exas, or maybe they should sue her. On the day he won his seventh Tour d e France, not many people could say, as she did, that they had no idea w ho Lance Armstrong was. Of course you don't have to be smart to get into "The Dukes of Hazzard."
Burt Reynolds should have been smart enough to stay out of it. Here is a lame-brained, outdated wheeze about a couple of good ol' boys who roar around the back roads of the S outh in the General Lee, their beloved 1969 Dodge Charger. You could have told them apart beca use mine did not have a Confederate flag painted on the roof. the absence of a Puke Duk e is a sadly missed opportunity.
Willie Nelson), and depend on the General to outr un the forces of Sheriff Roscoe P Coltrane ( MC Gainey). The movie even has one of those obligatory scenes where the car is racing along w hen there's a quick cut to a gigantic Mack truck, its horn blasting as i t bears down on them. That giant Mack truck keeps busy in the movies, turning up again an d again during chase scenes and always just barely missing the car conta ining the heroes, but this is the first time I have seen it making 60 mp h down a single-lane dirt track. Simpson plays Daisy Duke, whose short shorts became so famous on TV that they were known as "Daisy Dukes." She models them to a certain effect in a few brief scenes, but is missing from most of the movie. I learn from the Internet that Sim pson has a dog named Daisy, but have been unable to learn if she named i t before or after being signed for the role, and whether the dog is name d after the character, the shorts, the flower, or perhaps (a long shot) Daisy Duck.
Burt Reynolds), "the me anest man in Hazzard County," who issues orders to the Sheriff and every body else, and has a secret plan to strip-mine the county and turn it in to a wasteland. I wonder if there were moments when Reynolds reflected t hat, karma-wise, this movie was the second half of what "Smokey and the Bandit" was the first half of. There are a lot of scenes in the movie where the General is racing down b ack roads at high speeds and becomes airborne, leaping across ditches, r ivers and suchlike, miraculously without breaking the moonshine bottles. Surely if you have seen, say, 12 scenes of a car flying through the air , you are not consumed by a need to see 12 more. There is a NASCAR race in the film, and some amusing dialogue about car s ponsorship. You know the film is set in modern times because along with Castrol and Coke, one of the car sponsors is Yahoo! I noted one immortal passage of dialogue, about a charity that is raising money for "one of the bifidas."
The movie has one offensive scene, alas, that doesn't belong in a contemp orary comedy. Bo and Luke are involved in a mishap that causes their fac es to be blackened with soot, and then, wouldn't you know, they drive in to an African-American neighborhood, where their car is surrounded by om inous young men who are not amused by blackface, or by the Confederate f lag painted on the car. I was hoping maybe the boyz n the hood would car jack the General, which would provide a fresh twist to the story, but no , the scene sinks into the mire of its own despond.
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