April 15: TV to Movies — Let’s decry the lack of originality in Hollywood. But first, let’s write about a movie that started as a TV show.

The 2007 prequel The Dukes of Hazzard: The Beginning is a curious artifact of the mid-2000s direct-to-video boom, arriving just two years after the big-budget Johnny Knoxville/Seann William Scott theatrical film. While the 2005 version felt like a glossy Hollywood blockbuster, The Beginning leans hard into the “teen sex comedy” trope that defined the post-American Pie era (which also got its own endless series of direct-to-video sequels).

When mischievous teenage cousins Bo (Jonathan Bennett, Mean Girls and so many holiday movies) and Luke Duke (Randy Wayne, Hellraiser: Judgment) are put in the care of their Uncle Jesse (Willis Nelson) to work on his farm. But they soon learn that their uncle makes the best moonshine anywhere, and Boss Hogg (Christopher McDonald) plans to close down their family farm. Along with Cooter (Joel David Moore, Norm from the Avatar series) and their cousin Daisy (April Scott), they’ll save the day.

Directed by Robert Berlinger, whose career is mostly in TV, and written by Shane Morris (one of the writers of Frozen), this gets in everyone you want from the series, like Roscoe (Harland Williams), Enos (Adam Shulman), Lulu Hogg (Sherilynn Fenn) and even Gary Cole taking over for Waylon Jennings as the Balladeer. Originally airing on ABC Family, there were also R-rated and unrated versions.

Common Sense Media adds, “Parents need to know that this comedy has all the raunch of the American Pie movies and all the sexism of There’s Something About Mary. It encourages girls to base their worth on how they look and to use their appearance to manipulate men. It may also lead teen boys to drive recklessly. The film also says that General Robert E. Lee, who led the South in the Civil War, was “the greatest general,” which may disturb families of color. The film shows teens drinking and implies that teens have sex.”

Somehow, this has a Drive-By Truckers song on the soundtrack.

Otherwise, this is not my Dukes of Hazzard, which is probably so problematic now I shouldn’t have written that. I didn’t like that Daisy went from a nerd to a woman who learned that only through her beauty could she get what she wanted.

If you expect nothing from a direct-to-video and cable prequel/sequel to a failed reboot, you will be rewarded in abundance.

You can watch this on Tubi.