Duke is a modern day telling of a classic western film. Dare and Roost are brothers who have been raised in a reformatory, taught to survive and conditioned to trust no one. They have moved to West Los Angeles, where Dare moonlights himself as a Detective and Roost blankets himself in old John Wayne films and reclusive habit. Cleaning the streets and ridding the neighborhoods of scum, this contemporary study finds Dare obsessed with a phantom like criminal (Winky) who seems to be terrorizing the community. Simultaneously, the same exact investigation is being led by official and likely engrossed Detective Robert Morrison. As Dare closes in on Winky and the entire department closes in on them both, these brothers must make the ultimate commitment and pay the extraordinary consequences therein.
Acting
Harris's Roost dissolves into Wayne-obsessed fragility—unsettling and specific.
Cinematography
LA shot like a dying frontier, sunset boulevards as dusty trails.
Director
Anthony Gaudioso
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
The Gaudioso brothers shot this in actual West LA neighborhoods with minimal permits, giving chase scenes an accidental documentary tension.
The film's title nods to John Wayne's nickname 'Duke,' but inverts the Western hero—here the name becomes a delusion that destroys rather than saves.
US
