By Ben Pearson/Aug. 25, 2020 2:00 pm EST
Here’s the movie’s official synopsis, which will provide some context for what you’re about to see:
This clip takes place shortly after the boys’ instructor points out the path they’re supposed to take and sets them off on their journey across the highlands.
Dean, Duncan and DJ Beatroot are teenage pals from Glasgow who embark on the character-building camping trip – based on a real-life program - known as the Duke of Edinburgh Award, where foraging, teamwork and orienteering are the order of the day. Eager to cut loose and smoke weed in the Scottish Highlands, the trio finds themselves paired with straight-laced Ian, a fellow camper determined to play by the rules. After veering off-path into remote farmland that’s worlds away from their urban comfort zone, the boys find themselves hunted down by a shadowy force hell-bent on extinguishing their futures.
Get Duked Clip
Writer-director Ninian Doff, who directed short films and music videos for artists like Run the Jewels, Miike Snow, Migos, and Mykki Blanco, is making his feature directorial debut with this movie, and his background in music videos becomes evident pretty quickly. The movie’s trippy drug sequences feature dynamic, unique techniques that give the movie some extra verve, and our full review says that its “psychotropic color saturation and manipulation of LSD-dream imagery are but one of the many defining factors of this backwoods brawl against societal corruption.”
The movie used to be called Boyz in the Wood, which I personally think is a more evocative and overall better title. But the film won several awards on the festival circuit, including the Audience Award in the Midnights section at SXSW 2019, and even the worst title can’t take away the fact that this is a fun and often hilarious movie that’s absolutely worth seeing, regardless of what it’s called.
