10/06/2012: Hard Ticket To Hawaii [1987]

I really can’t believe that I have now watched Hard Ticket To Hawaii three times. It was the first Andy Sidaris I watched, and I had watched it once again in with my friends after a couple of us had watched it individually. Now that I have the whole Andy Sidaris collection, I refrained from skipping it and watched it over for the nostalgia. After this, all of the Andy Sidaris movies will be no ground, and I have no idea what to expect.

I quite enjoyed Malibu Express, the first of Andy Sidaris’s Bombs, Bullets and Babes series, but as outrageous as that one was, Hard Ticket has some of the most incomprehensible scenes imaginable. When it comes down to how outrageous things can get, Hard Ticket has Malibu Express beat. Ironically, Andy Sidaris even references Malibu Express to explain how these character are in anyway related, he probably could have just started from scratch. However, apparently Corey Abilene, from Malibu Express, was a formed DEA agent who became an actor. So with Malibu Express posters hanging on the wall, Corey’s, brother another DEA agent is now in Hawaii with the Malibu Express herself, and ready to take down the local cartel. Okay...

Hard Ticket is where Andy Sidaris begins the recurring theme of secret agent women in the rest of his movies. Sent to Hawaii is a pair of DEA agents, one of whom is apparently just a civilian in witness protection who has chosen to go into hiding as an active DEA agent. That is an interesting bit of crazy. While there, they uncover a large drug ring being operated in Hawaii and set out to take it down. However, this being an Andy Sidaris movie there is always one or two more plots unrolling, and whilst the drug bust is being carried out, a snake has gotten loose on the island. But this isn’t your average snake, it is “contaminated with deadly toxins from cancerous rats”. I’m not kidding you, that is the exact line.

No ninja star is gonna keep this guy out of the game.

 Hard Ticket is truly filled with an enormous number of nonsensical scenes and I’ll list off a few later to get you enticed. The first crazy thing about Hard Ticket is the wounds, people get shot in the chest, and one guy takes a ninja star to a lung, and yet, it’s all fine, and they just shrug them off. Then there is some outrageous overreactions, like when Seth spots the snake, knowing only that it is a snake, some 20 feet away, and in sheer terror unloads a pistol magazine on in. I just don’t get it. Then there is the scene that first alerted me to the existence of these movies. First scene on a youtube clip, we have our freshly arrived, DEA agents, Rowdy and Jade who are cruising down the road, when suddenly a man in a skateboard passes them. Then he gets in a jeep drives back ahead of them and gets back on his board. This time however “Skater” is armed with a rifle, and for some inexplicable reason, carrying a blow up sex doll. I mean why the hell is he carrying that. What happens next is even more overkill, as one of our agents takes out a rocket launcher and proceed not to just blow up Skater but also fire again at the blow up doll as it sails through the air. What the hell.

But that is not the end of Hard Ticket’s nonsense. One thing I noticed, is that if a scene switches between inside and outside, it will literally switch between night and day. On top of all that are the ridiculous one liners. Just to quote a few, and every line is pretty much a one liner, we have; "Man...he must be smoking some heavy doobies.",and " I do all must best thinking in the hot tub." as well as more than I will ever remember. Unfortunately, I suck at remembering movie lines.

While blurry, he does look like a young Jamie Hynemen.

The actors and actress' in this movie are no one any would would recognize, unless perhaps from the centerfold of a playboy magazine. Once again Andy Sidaris opts to hire a bunch of playmates, who then proceed to deliver most of their lines scantily clad, or not clad at all. The dudes are even more mail order muscle hunk, than before, but on the upside they are pretty much bulletproof;

Rowdy Abilene: Jade, how bad you hit?
Jade: [with bullet hole in chest] I've been better.

Honestly, the acting in Hard Ticket is pretty bad, and seeing as I generally claim the cast gave great performance, since I can never recognize the bad ones, that is saying something. At least in Malibu Express, there was some decent acting, particularly from the star. With Hard Ticket it is all about the guns, girls and g-strings. I am a little concerned as to whether the rest of Andy Sidaris' movies will continue in this manner, and whether any will achieve the level of decency (relative term here) that was Malibu Express. Then again if they are as corny as Hard Ticket, they might be enjoyable for another reason.

I'm nor sure why Malibu Express has become my favourite. Before I started through my Andy Sidaris collection, Hard Ticket has been it. However, when it came to writing this review in comparison with the earlier, I realized that Hard Ticket is only fun for its badness, while somehow, Malibu Express, by simply trying, managed to be somewhat decent. I will continue on next weekend with Picasso Trigger, and then beyond there. In the meantime I am looking into acquiring a Malibu Express poster,  although god knows why.

Link:
Hard Ticket To Hawaii IMDb