Just what we needed to round off our summer of car-boot delights – Scooby Doo on wheels from the chap who unleashed Starship Troopers on an unsuspecting planet. As this recycled ‘70s rednexploitation (does that make it rednexploitation-exploitation?) trash crashes and burns onto the big screen, you can practically hear a focus group ticking boxes off in the distance.
Bar brawl in the opening minutes? Check. Folksy Appalachian Greek Chorus? Check. Men making approving sexual noises over whatever the hell makes cars go fast? Check. Save-the-farm perfunctory plot? Got it.
There are, of course, a couple of nominal embellishments on Hazzard County lore – a winking apology about the confederacy flag, schoolboy smut, a couple of coloured folks in the background, Willie Nelson and Burt Reynolds in supporting cameos and a jaunt through a pot-clouded college girl’s dorm (don’t ask).
For all that, you’d be hard pressed to tell this ramshackle exercise from a single episode of the iconic garbage that ‘inspired’ it.
Though pleasingly liquored-up on testosterone (Knoxville and Scott’s competitive buttheaded pranksterism recalls both Jackass and tender scenes from ancient Greece) and of definite interest for people who bring deckchairs to roadsides for the North West rally, The Dukes Of Hazzard is disturbingly disposable – a reconstituted mess of a movie with a couple of decent car-chases tacked on.
The feeling of sitting in a pungent landfill becomes all the more oppressive with every moment of screen time given to Jessica Simpson’s belle-cat Daisy Duke. “Those two boys done gonna get in trouble and then I’m gonna have to shake my ass at somebody,” she simpers in tones so robotic they almost match her frighteningly artificial frame.
Even if we chose to generously overlook the frankly offensive drool trail that seems to snake after her hot pants, acting that wouldn’t cut it in a low rent porn and her apparent blow-up doll IQ, there’s still her unforgivable nails-on-blackboard-through-vocoder rendition of ‘These Boots Were Made For Walking’ to contend with.
Enough. Wake me up when The Honeymooners has been and gone.