Funnier than the presidential debate and more coherent.
Get Duked
Grade: B+
Director: Ninian Doff
Screenplay: Doff
Cast: Eddie Izzard (The High Note), et al.
Runtime: 1 h 27 m
Rating: R
By: John DeSando
“I've never seen a murder before - I'm homeschooled.” Ian Samuel Bottomley
Get Duked is a hip-hop inspired comedy reminiscent of the almost saner Monty Python and Shaun of the Dead crazy. Considering the anarchic presidential debate a short while ago, this satire of contemporary, aimless youth and wacked-out adults may seem more coherent than it is.
Three misfit teens, Dean (Rian Gordon); Duncan (Lewis Gribben); William (Viraj Juneja); and Ian (Samuel Bottomley), an overachiever there to pad his CV, are sent without cells or weed to the Scottish Highlands to rough it and win the Duke of Edinburgh Award, a laminated certificate for survival. Although one or two could be called “streetwise,” they are all ill-equipped to deal with the crazed huntsman Duke (Eddie Izzard) and his equally irrational wife (Georgie Glen), who shout about maintaining “the integrity of the species” by hunting the boys.
So explosively funny and dangerous is the survival experience that the chaperone, Mr. Carlyle (Jonathan Aris), says, “To be honest, the whole thing is fraught with danger. Really, I’m amazed they let teenagers do it.”
Get Duked, originally called Boyz in the Wood, won an audience award at SXSW (2019). It’s a refreshing 87 min of nonsense with actual laugh-out loud moments. In order to get the full experience and not lose dialogue, turn on closed caption, a survival technique that may be the most rational act you’ll experience during viewing time.
Rent on Amazon and free with Prime membership.
John DeSando, a Los Angeles Press Club first-place winner for National Entertainment Journalism, hosts WCBE’s It’s Movie Time and co-hosts Cinema Classics. Contact him at JohnDeSando62@gmail.com
