The Dukes of Hazzard

I didn’t go in to this movie with any sort of expectations. I’ve never seen the tv show. All I knew was that I think Johnny Knoxville and Seann William Scott are funny and I like laughing at Jessica Simpson. I was hoping to be entertained, and I was.

This movie was made by the same people as Super Troopers, and a lot of them make appearances in the film. I got a kick out of Knoxville and Scott as Luke and Bo Duke, particularly the jokes the two play on each other. That, along with the car chases and stunts, made this like a two hour episode of Jackass with a plot and less crude humor.

Aside from being funny and having some good action, the movie had a surprisingly coherent plot (even though it ultimately functions as an excuse for car chases, including some in downtown Atlanta). It involves the Dukes trying to stop Boss Hogg from turning Hazzard County into a strip mine. It’s not earth-shattering stuff, but it gave me over an hour and a half of laughs, excitement, and entertainment.

I also got quite a kick out of seeing bits of Atlanta in the movie. It’s always cool to see things in a movie that you see in real life on a regular basis.

And like Ryan Pinkston got to ask Amanda Peet on Punk’d a few years ago, I wish I could find a way to ask Jessica Simpson, “How did it feel to play someone smart?”

In short, it was kind of a stupid movie but it was never trying to be anything more, so it was hard to be disappointed. If you go in with expectations similar to mine, you should leave satisfied, too.