Around the time that I started having BAD MOVIE MONDAY three years ago, my wife invented the term “Gratuititties” in order to describe the often gratuitous but always welcome presence of uncovered female breasts in a trashy movie. I’ve used it in as many reviews as I can, mostly because I think it’s a funny word. However, never has it been more appropriate to use than in this movie’s review. It only takes a little over one minute and thirty seconds before we see the first “gratuititties” in the film. Don’t worry though because they’ll be back again and again, and I felt like that boy at the end of ANIMAL HOUSE when a pretty girl crashes through his bedroom window onto his lap and he goes “THANK YOU GOD!” except I was thanking all the women in this movie pretty much throughout the entire movie.
Quick Recap! When COVID shut down everything in early 2020, I started an online bad movie night get-together with some friends that we eventually dubbed “Bad Movie Monday”. The premise was simple: We’d torture each other every Monday with the worst trash we could find, tell a few jokes, cheer each other up, and in the process maybe discover some weird obscure cinema that we might never have seen any other way. This series of reviews will feature highlights of those night so you can all share in the fun and maybe get some ideas for your own movie night.
The movie I’m reviewing today is HARD TICKET TO HAWAII, a 1987 low budget action thriller starring several Playboy Playmates: Dona Speir (Miss March 1984), Hope Marie Carlton (Miss July 1985), Cynthia Brimhall (Miss October 1985), and Patty Duffek (Miss May 1984) There’s bunch of other people in the movie too, all fine respectable actors I’m sure, but they never appeared in Playboy so I’ve already forgotten their names. It was directed by Andy Sidaris who, for the next few days at least, is my favorite director of all time.
It’s the little ridiculous things I love about this film. Like how Hope Marie Carlton’s character Taryn is a woman who testified against the mob in Vegas, so the witness protection program sent her to work for the DEA in Hawaii as an undercover agent… posing as an air freight pilot? Which begs the question, is she pretending to be a DEA agent or a pilot? Because she’s technically neither. Other great moments involve a rinky-dink toy helicopter used to smuggle diamonds, the gross mishandling of nunchucks by multiple characters, secret spy messages hidden in sandwiches, and an attempt to create an Andy Sidaris extended universe. The film is also beautifully edited, with few slow or overly talky parts. I know I mention editing and pacing a lot in reviews, but I think it’s probably the most essential part of any “bad” movie.
Let’s read the synopsis on the back of the VHS box, shall we?
Starring four Playboy centerfold beauties and Ronn Moss (“The Bold & The Beautiful”) “Hard Ticket to Hawaii” is an action-adventure movie in the great tradition of James Bond. Set among the stunning islands of Hawaii, Dona Speir and Hope Marie Carlton are two undercover federal agents running an inter-island cargo service. Discovering a cache of diamonds, the gorgeous pair soon run into major trouble unleashing an international drug dealer’s henchmen on them. Rowdy (Ronn Moss) and Jade (World Martial Arts and Kick Boxing champion Harold Diamond) come to their rescue in a serious of explosions, car chases, karate fights and love scenes that will blow you away.
Nice! Although the synopsis criminally fails to mention the fact that there’s a giant, man-eating, toxic, cancer-contaminated snake roaming around the movie, and it is the most stupidly badass thing in the world. Apparently, it kills by giving you venomous cancer.
Okay, onto my favorite part of the review where I make a list of ten thoughts I had during the movie!
#1 – Almost instantaneous gratuititties. Good. Good. Very Good.
#2 – The live action titles, using crates and other warehouse items with pieces of cardboard with the credits written on them, are pretty clever.
#3 – The best way to deliver exposition is in a bikini or topless, preferably one and then the other.
#4 – The theme song is very probably going to be an earworm for me for many days to come.
#5 – According to this movie, sitting topless in a Jacuzzi is where women do all their best thinking.
#6 – Not even halfway through the movie and the main bad guy already got shot right in the fucking face.
#7 – I know I’ve mentioned this a lot, but there’s a LOT of nudity in this movie.
#8 – A Frisbee with razor blades taped to it is the deadliest weapon known to man.
#9 – A rocket launcher as a side arm is certainly a choice. Using it indoors might be a bit of a bad idea though.
#10 – This ending is similar to Halloween, if Jamie Lee Curtis had used a harpoon gun instead of a coat hanger and if Michael Myers was a giant wussy that kept getting his ass handed to him.
