Bait Shop

Bill Engvall, Billy Ray Cyrus, Billy Joe Shaver. Forced to pony up $15,000 to keep the bank from foreclosing on his bait shop, a Southern bass master enters a fishing tournament and goes head-to-head against his bitter bait shop rival. Talk about reel” funny! 2008/color/85 min/PG/widescreen.

Bait Shop stars the eternally affable yet exasperated comedian Bill Engvall as Bill Dugan, owner of a homey but smalltime bait shop. Bill’s job and self-respect are threatened when arrogant fishing celebrity Hot Rod Johnson (Billy Ray Cyrus, better known as Miley’s dad) opens a massive fishing superstore right next door. Only by challenging Hot Rod in a bass fishing tournament can Bill set things right! Bait Shop is a bundle of clumsy cliches made somewhat tolerable by a likable cast (including outlaw country music singer Billy Joe Shaver as Bill’s mentor) and an enthusiastic performance by Cyrus, who clearly enjoys being the bad guy for once. High points include Bill having a bar fight while dressed in a fish costume and Bill wrestling an obviously rubber bass into his boat. There are many declarations about how fishing used to be more pure and how friendship is the most important thing in life. Extras include a standard-issue making-of documentary, some beautiful shots of the local landscape (which, inexplicably, never got used in the movie itself), some understandably deleted scenes and some scenes of the cast goofing around. All in all, not much effort was put into making either the movie or the DVD. –Bret Fetzer

Features

• DVD
• Multiple Formats, AC-3, Color
• Spanish (Subtitled), English (Subtitled), English (Original Language)
• 1
• 85