Hey everyone… Jonathan Moody back again to discuss another movie and maybe one that is not as awesome as my last one. One that is a bit more troubled. I am talking about the 1987 Andy Sidaris film, “Hard Ticket to Hawaii”. And man this one doesn’t disappoint in the badness department, lol! We did this new episode through zoom with Paul Presenza, myself, and special guest Lacy Lou who I hope in Season 9 we can bring her back! She was such a fun person to chat with! Even though this is not her type of movie haha!
So like I said this is an Andy Sidaris movie and if you have seen one Andy Sidaris movie you pretty much have seen them all, they are basically the same formulaic film. Unlike Savage Beach which we reviewed in Season 5 with Cayt Feinics, this one is a whole lot worse! That one was pretty mid for a Sidaris film whereas Hard Ticket To Hawaii is so over the top and outrageous it really becomes so much worse!
Here’s the plot by IMDB:
In Hawaii, an undercover DEA Agent and her civilian friend stumble upon a drug trafficking operation, and have to enlist the help of their colleagues/friends to go after the vicious drug kingpin.
Yep, that’s pretty much the plot in a nutshell. What they forgot to mention are the millions and millions of boobs you see in the film. So many boobs its not even funny. After a while you’re kind of immune to the boobs: and poor Lacy had to watch it all. We didn’t do that to be mean, but I knew of all my friends she could handle it.
The cast was made up of Sidaris regulars including: Dona Spier (Doin’ Time, Dragnet), Hope Marie Carlton (Blood Match, Nightmare on Elm Street 4), Cynthia Brimhall (High Roller: The Stu Ungar Story, Every Breath), Ronn Moss (The Bold and the beautiful, Bolt), and a few others. The cast pretty much did the same as they usually do in most of the Sidaris films. Even Andy himself shows up as Whitey the TV Director. The acting wasn’t the highest grade acting but hey I don’t think we expected anything extraordinary.
The funny thing is this is one of those times we actually did a movie another review page had covered. Red Letter Media had done this film before but we had decided we also needed to do it. It was just too bad not to pass up. If you listen to the podcast there are certain scenes from the film that cracked us up to no end. We were laughing just discussing it, which I think was great! I don’t know if that was Andy’s hope for the movie but certainly was our highest expectation. You can’t call this movie not entertaining. And I actually do also recommend that Red Letter Media episode. I hope Rifftrax or someone like this covered it too.
It’s sad that movies like this – low independent action movies with explosions – don’t exist as much. Or if the explosion are there, it’s definitely CGI these days, which sucks. Andy, who is no longer with us, would probably be sad that there aren’t films like this being made these days. I would love to see someone try to do this again. Even though the Stink Score was pretty high for this one it wasn’t nearly as bad as some of the other action flicks we’ve seen. Some of those are not nearly as entertaining. But this one was more put together.
Well speaking of the Stinkometer score we are down to that point right now, and I’m kind of shocked to be honest. Savage Beach got a 14.5 but this one got a stink score of 26. That’s over 10 more stink points. I gave it a 9. Paul gave it a 9.5. And Lacy being the sweetheart that she is gave it a 7.5., which is a Stinky Average of 8.7! A 26 on the Ladder of Stink that puts it up there with Miami Connection, Disaster Wars, and The Wild World of Batwoman! Actually Hard Ticket To Hawaii suits that perfectly.
All in all though not too bad of an episode, a fun one if you love schlock indie action flicks. And if you do you will probably get a load of fun for this one. However, once again there is a lot of nudity in the movie – if that’s something you really don’t want to see I totally get it. But then again if you watch any Sidaris film you’ll pretty much see the same thing, minus not as many snakes. But a lot of Hawaii! And on that note I’m going to let the Moo Cow take it away and tell you guys how you may be able to find all of the stuff for this film. And I’ll be back after his next two movies he discusses. Take it away, Moo Cow…
Moo everyone – and let’s just mention that this cow had a massive 80’s crush on Cynthia Brimhall… ;=8)
So, trailerage we has right HERE. Along with the ‘haunting’ theme song. You can watch it for free on Tubi. Udderwise go to Uncle Amazon to get your DVD, Blu Ray, and special Director’s Cut versions of the film. You can also get this and just about all of Andy Sidaris’s films at the Malibu Bay Films website – check it out! You can also find Hard Ticket in the re-sale market at Ebay. You can get the 1987 poster at Amazon too, and also Ebay! And man on man you definitely want THIS TEE SHIRT if you are a fan of this moovie! And of course, if you want your moorning cup of Joe with a lil Hard Target action, check out Tee Public! There are some fun reviews of the film at Addicted Coffee Writer, Geeky Hobbies, and RamboRalph, as well as the aforementioned Red Letter Media. Bulletproof Action sums up the 5 reasons why you should be watching this flick! And finally, Action Flick Chick.com shows some love too.
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