Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Film Review: HARD TICKET TO HAWAII (1987, Andy Sidaris)

Stars: 3 of 5.
Running Time: 96 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: Ronn Moss (THE BOLD AND THE BEAUTIFUL), Dona Speir (MORTUARY ACADEMY, HARD HUNTED), Hope Marie Carlton (SIDE OUT, GHOULIES III, THE STAND), Patty Duffek (PICASSO TRIGGER), and Harold Diamond (Stick Fighter in RAMBO III).
Tag-line: "This ain't no Hula- it's a HARD TICKET TO HAWAII."
Best one-liner: "If brains were birdshit you'd have a clean cage." (Pretty sure that's been used elsewhere first.)

"Isn't that right, numb-nuts?" "I love it when you talk dirty." HARD TICKET TO HAWAII is gonna offer a lot to the your average trash enthusiast. It doesn't quite have the inspired idiocy of something like NINE DEATHS OF THE NINJA, any dance sequences, or the nonsensically sleazy touch that an Italian director might have provided, but it's still chock full of zany goodness.

There's women in short shorts with nunchucks (who throw them instead of use them properly). There's miniature helicopters, men in drag, gratuitous nudity, and a man with the shiniest aviator sunglasses I've ever seen (and his name is "Shades"). There's killer razor frisbees, blondes with bad line delivery, MIDI music, and use of the insult "turkey."

A guy rides a skateboard on his hands and someone remarks, "Man, he must be smoking some heavy doobies." A blow-up doll is bazooka-ed out of the sky



and there's a whole lot of double-takes over hot-pants-wearing women. Eurotrash sleaze is given a run for its money when a man says, "You go down on her, and you're gonna be kissin' the back of my head, cause I'm already gonna be there." All this, and I haven't even yet mentioned the puppet killer snake.

Or should I say CONTAMINATED killer snake. Apparently there is a big difference. So, yeah, overall, this is pretty solid. And the valium-induced non-performances of the cast are still somehow kind of likable. I can't say it's one of the best, but it certainly gets the job done. Three stars.

-Sean Gill

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