Film

'The Dukes': Doo-Wop band sings the blues

By Daniel Montgomery

Friday, November 14, 2008

It’s sad when a film so well-meaning falls so far below standards. ‘The Dukes’, the directing debut of veteran character actor Robert Davi, isn’t much of a movie at all. It’s a ninety minute shaggy dog story, a shabby assemblage of sitcom skits without any meaningful comic or dramatic payoffs. There’s an endearing squareness about this dated material — you half expect someone to put too much detergent in a washing machine. We might be able to forgive its naivete if it were better made.

“In 1969, we were on top of the world,” says Danny (Davi) at the start of the film. When those are the opening words of your screenplay, there’s little hope for originality elsewhere. Danny is referring to the short-lived success of his Doo Wop band the Dukes. They had a hit song or two and faded into obscurity. Now the group has splintered, and two of its members are working for Aunt Vee (Miriam Margolyes) at an underperforming restaurant and half-heartedly toss around get-rich-quick schemes while reminiscing about past glory.

The screenplay, by Davi and James Andronica, is a bit fuzzy on the details of the band. From the outset, we meet Danny and his cousin George (Chazz Palminteri), who were among its members. Their best friends are Armond (Frank D’Amico, who sadly passed away in June of this year) and Murph (Elya Baskin). Armond is a struggling stand-up comic, and Murph is a former airplane mechanic, but for some reason both take part in public appearances for the Dukes, including a low-budget, low-dignity tomato commercial when the group is in dire financial straits. We learn there was a rift between Danny and George and their bandmates. We meet the other members late in the film, but they hardly have any dialogue and the rift is never addressed — an oversight in an unfocused narrative.

Danny, George, Armond, and Murph, all of them at the end of their rope, plot a heist, the kind Lucy and Ethel might have considered. They will break into a dental lab, crack a safe, and abscond with gold that is used to make fillings and false teeth. You would think that such an absurd operation conducted by rank amateurs would yield hilarity, or tragedy, or … something. But this is one of many episodes in the film that leaves the gate but never really takes off.

Everything in ‘The Dukes’ is a cliche. The middle-aged man yearning to recapture his glory days. His estranged wife (Melora Hardin, from The Office) and a young son he wants to make proud. The oversexed best friend (with a twist — George is only attracted to overweight women). The estranged band members. The loyal but ineffectual manager (Peter Bogdanovich). The overbearing boss who pooh-poohs the main characters’ pie-in-the-sky dreams.

All of this might be passable if the film had a steadier hand to guide it, but Davi, as writer and director, struggles with such basics as plot, camerawork, and tone. Characters linger without purpose. Complications are introduced but lack meaningful resolutions. Scenes miss their mark, if there even is a mark. In one, Aunt Vee explains why she never took on Danny and George as partners; it is intended to be moving, but the combination of slow push-ins and a mawkish musical cue announce the emotion so heavy-handedly that it is almost self-parody. In another scene, the would-be robbers have four separate fantasies about living in the lap of luxury as they drive alongside a pricey convertible; the fantasies are as obvious and broad as a Disney Channel cartoon.

The last twenty minutes or so include a couple of the most egregious instances of deus ex machina I’ve seen. And an alcohol license snafu. And a blackout. Oh, forget it. Some movies are creatively bankrupt or cynical — I enjoy reviewing them the way an explosives expert enjoys demolition. This is not one of those films. ‘The Dukes” is about people with their hearts in the right place and made by people who are equally earnest, to a fault. It is simply not a good film. Davi has cast Oscar-nominated filmmaker Bogdanovich as the manager. Perhaps he should also have cast him as script doctor and creative consultant.