Jon Cryer, Daniel Roebuck, and Flea star as a trio of punks who have had it up to here with New York City and head on out to Los Angeles to start fresh. While camping in the desert, they are jumped by a gang of rednecks led by Lee Ving who rob them and kill Flea. When the local cops won’t lift a finger to help them, Cryer and Roebuck go out for revenge. Along the way, they are guided by the spirits of a cowboy and a Native American who aid them in their quest for vengeance.
Dudes is a weird movie. It’s neither fish nor fowl. At its core, I think it wanted to be a punk movie. Director Penelope Spheeris made her bones directing the punk documentary The Decline of Western Civilization, and I think this was her attempt to graft that punk sensibility into a modern-day western kind of plotline. The early going certainly works as Spheeris gives the punk club sequence an authentic vibe.
When the film switches gears and becomes a revenge picture, it all sort of falls apart. I can’t fault the actors. Cryer and Roebuck do the best they can with their lame costumes (both punk and western attire). Catherine Mary Stewart is also quite good as the tomboy love interest, but it’s Ving who leaves the biggest impression as the villain. (He was also in Civilization.)
It doesn’t help that the spirit quest Native American flashbacks and ghostly cowboy appearances are cheesy and poorly done. It’s like Spheeris was in her element during all the punk rock scenes, but didn’t have a clue when it came to the western style stuff. Not that you could really blame her, since the messy script was all over the place to begin with. I did like the shootout that occurred in a movie theater that was playing a western in the background during the gunfire, but other than that touch, the third act feels rushed and lacks punch.
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