The Dukes

Rotten Tomatoes

“The Dukes” wants to be the “Big Deal on Madonna Street” of doo-wop nostalgia, Italian-American division. As this shambling, cornball heist comedy — in which the members of a one-hit-wonder vocal group from the early '60s conspire in 2007 to rob the gold from the safe in a dental laboratory — plods along in its sloppy, joshing way, it tastes like pasta sauce that has sat on the shelf long after the expiration date on the can. Most of the oldies that punctuate the soundtrack are not the original recordings. »

Actor Robert Davi makes his directorial debut with a heist film featuring a doo-wop group, but it misses some high notes

Thanks to a sandpapery mug, beady-eyed stare and menacing baritone, actor Robert Davi has carved out a sturdy career in movies and television playing hard cases on one side of the law or the other. So it's pleasant to report that his directorial debut, "The Dukes," while not without problems, at least showcases a tenderness and lightness of spirit that starts with Davi's performance as Danny, a doo-wop singer struggling to make ends meet in an unforgiving world for oldies acts. Because the actor co-wrote the movie too, one might say an image-shifting campaign is afoot. »

Here's the little movie that could, a potent directing debut for actor Robert Davi, an immortal Bond villain in License to Kill. Davi plays Danny DePasquale, a star in his 20s when he and his chubby-chaser pal George Zucco (Chazz Palminteri, in top form) lead a doo-wop group called the Dukes. Cut ahead a few decades, and the guys are struggling in California, working in an Italian restaurant run by their Aunt Vee (Miriam Margolyes) and hassling their manager (a terrific Peter Bogdanovich) to repackage them as an oldies group. »