Hard Ticket to Hawaii (1987)

Where else but an Andy Sidaris film can you watch a movie involving drug smuggling gangster, a busty pair of Blonde mercenaries running around in short shorts, and a sub-plot involving a sneaky venomous snake prone to popping up in oddest places? And what’s more is that “Hard Ticket to Hawaii” is played with the utmost sincerity, as director Sidaris unfolds a movie that’s as deliciously bad as its theme song. If there’s any film that should act as an entry point for Andy Sidaris’ repertoire, “Hard Ticket to Hawaii” is a great summary of what Sidaris is capable of. “Hard Ticket…” is often silly and so utterly awful from acting to sound mixing, but it embraces its trappings by injecting as much softcore sex and nudity as humanly possible. Did I mention the sub-plot involving the killer snake (read: obvious hand puppet) that spends its time sneering through crevices and murdering random characters?

The insanely hot Donna Speir and Hope Marie Carlton are Secret Agents Donne and Taryn who walk around in clingy tank tops and hot pants. They fly to Molokai with a married couple who go along with them for a ride on their helicopter. While there, Donna and Taryn discover a large flying helicopter drone that flies near them and is smuggling diamonds back and forth. The island is being occupied by our resident villain and his muscle bound thugs, all of whom are super greasy, square jawed and can fight karate, donchaknow? If the premise sounds rambling and nonsensical to you, that’s because it is. It’s not often you can sit in on a movie and on the first line chuckle to yourself, wholly aware that you’re in for an absolutely ridiculous experience. Maybe “The Room” had the effect. But upon the first bad dubbing of a young busty actress delivering a stilted line, you get the sense that director Andy Sidaris is kind of playing everything here by ear.

Everything about the narrative just comes out of nowhere and is cobbled together to make an eighties action movie. Sidraris’ film watches like what a modern film student would think a stereotypical eighties action movie would be like. There’s bad acting, a lot of big hair, over the top explosions, nonsensical plot points, and scenes that come out of nowhere. One minute our two heroines are fending off two gun toting gangsters, and suddenly pull out two throwing stars, chucking them at the thugs. Where said stars were stashed is anyone’s guess. And did I mention the killer snake that seems like it drifted out of a bad late seventies TV movie? If you think flashbacks through a dog’s eyes in “The Hills Have Eyes 2” is bafflingly moronic, wait until you see the snake who watches everything is kind of like some reptilian narrator of a sort.

It also has a bad temperament, as you can tell by the monster’s silly sculpting and angry “Hisss!” every time Sidaris cuts to its angry eyes. Really the point of “Hard Ticket to Hawaii” is to bask in the senseless action, and really good looking women, all of whom spend a lot of their screen time completely naked, or wielding big guns while dressed in tight and short clothing. It’s exploitation in the greatest sense, and I had fun with it and it’s a lot of fun to look at. If there’s an entry point for potential Sidaris fans, “Hard Ticket to Hawaii” is a good start.