It's tempting to compare Get Duked! to the 2011 sci-fi comedy horror film Attack the Block, John Boyega's big-screen debut. After all, both follow teen delinquents in the United Kingdom who must defend themselves against absurd, existential threats, set to a hip-hop beat. But Get Duked! isn't quite that. It's more as if ... The Hills Have Eyes were a black comedy, shot in the Scottish Highlands, and given a dose of hallucinogenic rabbit poop.
Written and helmed by Ninian Doff, in his feature directorial debut, Get Duked! centers on three misbehaving teenage friends from Glasgow, Dean (Rian Gordon), Duncan (Lewis Gribben) and DJ Beatroot (Viraj Juneja), who are presented with a choice: either be expelled from school, or participate in the Duke of Edinburgh's Awards -- specifically, the hiking and camping aspect of the character-building program. Americans should think of it as Outward Bound meets the Presidential Physical Fitness Award, only focusing on teamwork, foraging and orienteering.
Driven into the countryside, they're partnered with Ian (Samuel Bottomley), a sensitive, straight-laced boy eager to add the DofE to his resume. But what should be a relatively straightforward hike through Scottish farmland, interrupted only by mud puddles, livestock and a secreted cache of hashish, swiftly turns into a struggle between life and death as the teens are pursued by two sinister figures known only as The Duke (Eddie Izzard) and The Duchess (Georgie Glen).
Although the premise certainly seems like horror, the execution is full-on comedy, due in large part to three of the protagonists being ill-equipped to hike through the Scottish countryside, let alone to evade a pair of demented hunters. Plus, they're simply not that bright. That said, brains are in short supply in this setting, where the local police (played by Kate Dickie and Kevin Guthrie), tired of their fruitless pursuit of a bread thief, follow clues left by the boys and The Duke and The Duchess, only to repeatedly reach the wrong conclusions (invading gangs from the city and, yes, even zombies).
Boasting frequently manic scenes that owe as much to Noff's background as a director of music videos (The Chemical Brothers, Royal Blood) as they do to the aforementioned hallucinogenic rabbit poop dubbed "farmer's courage" by the locals, Get Duked! is absurd and anarchic, as evidenced by the hip-hop-loving farmers, and the prim-and-proper Duke and Duchess, with their tattered masks. However, there's more to the film than its joyous chaos.
Beneath that veneer, it's a political allegory about class and generational divides; Noff admits that Brexit and the current political climate in the United States were on his mind when he wrote the script. And Get Duked! mostly works on that level, even if its allegorical nature has all of the subtlety of crashing cymbals toward the end.
But if you don't care for a message intruding upon your survivalist comedy, Get Duked! makes that easy enough to ignore with its unbridled silliness, to say nothing of the performances by the four leads, Bottomley, Gordon, Gribben and Juneja, and by Dickie and Guthrie as the equally simple-minded local law enforcement.
Besides, any film that includes James Cosmo (Braveheart, Game Thrones) as a hallucinogen-using farmer turned hip-hop convert is an immediate must-watch, no matter what metric you use.
Written and directed by Ninian Doff, Get Duked! stars Samuel Bottomley, Rian Gordon, Lewis Gribben, Viraj Juneja, Kate Dickie, Kevin Guthrie, Jonathan Aris, Georgie Glen, Alice Lowe, Brian Pettifer, with James Cosmo and Eddie Izzard, The film is streaming now on Amazon Prime Video.