Review: “Get Duked!”
- Scott
- Oct 17, 2021
- 3 min read
Get Duked! is yet another winner in this year’s game of Russian Roulette watching a random movie.
The Duke of Edinburgh award is handed out to teens every year for taking on and completing an unguided trek across the Scottish highlands. Every year kids make this journey because they want the adventure, the character-building experience, and the feeling that you accomplished something great. However Dean, Duncan, and DJ Beatroot are taking this trip because they aren’t exactly the best of students, and this is their last hope to pass. A fourth boy, Ian, is along for this because he doesn’t really have any friends, and also getting the DoE award looks great on a CV. The boys are driven out to the highlands by their teacher Mr. Carlyle and told the path they need to take in order to make it to the coast and get their passing grade.
The boys quickly learn they are in well over their heads taking on this challenge. No cell service, no landmarks, and no assistance in any real way to help them get to their goals. Only Ian seems to have any real grasp of what they need to do and also seems to be the only one that has any grasp on reality as well. As the boys make their way across the highlands they, find a farmer out in his field. He tells the group they should be careful. Lots of children go missing every year out here. There are caves, smuggler’s dens, and any number of places for a child to get lost. Then the boys ask a man in the distance for assistance. Instead of helping them, he shoots at them. Why? They don’t know but he seems dead set on “culling the herd”. Now they are lost, and on the run from a mad man with a gun, and they still have to worry about whether or not they will get to the coast and pass.
Get Duked! is like a magical mix of Stand By Me and The Most Dangerous Game, with a dash of Hunger Games mixed in for good measure. The journey the boys take is the old saying “it’s not the destination but the journey” put to film. These kids start out as directionless (pun intended) misfits that can barely function at all and by the end, they are a team thinking as one and acting accordingly. Each of the four boys has very distinct character traits, and flaws and when they all manage to not so much overcome them as embracing them.
Movies with a cast that can fit entirely into one small room are some of my favorite movies. They usually allow you to get to know the characters more intimately. Each of the very few characters in Get Duked! is well acted as well as well written. It’s full of great little jokes and quips. While light on special effects, what is in there is very well done. Simple digital effects added to certain scenes heighten the … well… effect they are going for. Again not so much a horror movie as it is a thriller, but it also has enough scenes of let’s say “brutality” that made me gasp, and immediately laugh. Mark this one down as another “Original Movie” that I would highly recommend everyone check out.
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