Movie Review: The Dukes

It seem alright to give The Dukes a pass for its supposedly modest goals, as many critics have done up to this point. But in terms of narrative themes, this movie is more ambitious than it initially seems. There are a lot of things going on in The Dukes, a modest but still turgid dramedy directed by longtime character actor Robert Davi, and some of them are legitimately interesting and unique. For starters, it plays with the ever-present motif of old-world stars in the YouTube era in a different way. The film’s opening shot has a newspaper—that dying old thing—front and center, and the opening sequence in an old-fashioned diner could be a of Goodfellas-era wise guy scene (even if the cinematography is straight out of the first day of film class). It is only after we leave the restaurant that we learn what’s really going on—a bunch of washed-up '60s doo-wop stars are looking to make a buck in a time where there’s no demand for anything old-fashioned. The set up is smart, and the film subtlety mixes old-world and new-world imagery in a manner that's hard to ignore.

The second item of interest is the way The Dukes plays with the Italian gangster film stereotype. The movie’s second act is a straightforward heist movie, except the heist is executed by a bunch of incompetents with no criminal record due to pure financial necessity. Rather than belong a heavily organized crime racket with vicious intentions, these crooks are following the age-old question of whether it’s better to rob a loaf of bread to feed a family. Or in this case, get your son’s dental work paid for.

Unfortunately, these relatively new developments get lost in a wave of schmaltz and cliché, as Davi’s direction and writing never goes beyond children’s story level of complexity. Even with the story of a partner who sleeps with plus-sized women (the ubiquitous Chazz Palminteri) a hapless agent getting the act consistently scammed (Peter Bogdonavich, who shouldn’t need to take roles like this any longer), and constantly disappointing their Aunt Vee (Miriam Margoyles), as incompetent chefs in her restaurant, this is more of a PG than PG-13 kind of movie, both in its simplistic sense of humor and its graceless execution. The film is poorly shot, poorly paced, and lazily chopped together. Everything that succeeds about the film succeeds through cheese. Despite the it-ain’t-like-it-used-to-be appeal (or perhaps because of it), The Dukes seems like it really lacks a purpose in the current film climate; even the cheese seems spoiled and left in the fridge a few years too long.

Article Author: Ethan Stanislawski

Ethan Stanislawski is a freelance journalist/critic and new media specialist. He is a regular reviewer and staff writer at Prefix Magazine, and also contributes regularly to Blogcritics Magazine. His interests include theater, film, and pop music …

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