Three laughs: Hard Ticket to Hawaii

It is hard to rate some trashy films. Films can be really good entertainment in spite of the quality of the filmmaking. In fact, it might be even harder to create unique trash that keeps surprising you than most "quality" films with which you know what you are going to get. It certainly is an even better pleasure to watch them. My friend says that he knows a trash film is worth something if it gets three laughs out of me. I mean proper, good belly laughs when you just can't believe what the film is showing to you, scene after scene. That's as good a rating as any for these movies. Any film that has these three laughs has a special place in my heart.

Three laughs case #20:
Hard Ticket to Hawaii (USA, 1987)
Director: Andy Sidaris

There are plenty of 80's video store -stuffing cheapo films that exist by using the allure of female bodies and cartoonish violence to draw in the crowds. But few have refined the formula to work in their favour as well as Malibu Films auteur Andy Sidaris. If Godard only needed a boy, a girl and a gun to make a movie, then Sidaris needed a couple of D-cups and some beautiful hawaiian landscapes to create a better one!

Plenty of Sidaris' films use similar premises and girls with big guns, most also feature Dona Speir's agent character, Donna Hamilton. But Hard Ticket to Hawaii is notorious, because of a few scenes (that I will detail below) and the lead role played by Ronn Moss, a soap opera hunk beloved for his long-lasting role in The Bold and the Beautiful and for his musical career as a sort of blues rock balladier. It should goes to show as well that the film is funnier than Sidaris' usual forte, though not always because of the corny jokes meant to be laughed at. The film has a sort of good-natured and easygoing feeling. It's like everyone involved had a lot of fun, so it's a bit hard to get angry at the movie objecting women or having misogynistic underlying thoughts as the makers seem to be in on the joke. The women do have their own agendas, even if it mostly means them getting naked in a hot tub or seducing men for some piece of information.

According to a video greeting by Moss, the film is also a favorite of Quentin Tarantino (though he heard this compliment from his unnamed friend) and he has viewed the film numerous times. I can't argue with the sentiment, I like to watch the movie all the time, too.

"One man's dream is another man's lunch!"

Three laughs (SPOILERS):

1. The film's plot, as it is, is twofold. First, Hamilton and Moss's agent Rowdy Abiline are looking to bust a criminal league that's smuggling diamonds to a peaceful Hawaiian island in small remote-controlled helicopters. But the situation is also worsened by having a giant, chemically enhanced snake get loose and murder people. The snake is infused with cells from cancer-induced rats! Nevertheless, the model is totally cute and every time the rascal appears on screen, it gets a hearty chuckle from me. And of course the explosive finale of the snake saga has to be seen to be believed.

2. The film's action scenes are far between, as mostly the movie is more concerned with sex and soap opera -like scenes of the girls' daily lives. But when it delivers, it delivers hard! The favorite of YouTube is the entitrely bizarre scene that has a skater with a blow-up doll try to kill Abiline by skating by his car and pulling out an uzi. But Good ol' Rowdy just backs his buggy into the assailant, who flies in the air. Then Abiline pulls out his rocket launcher, and kills the creep, and then his blow-up doll. Take that for trying to be the next Tony Hawk!

3. Abiline is surprisingly violent towards goons for a guy that's most of the movie totally mellow and along for the ride with Donna's sexual hunger. Another brilliant scene sees him dispose of a guard on a beach. He sees he likes to throw a frisbee around with a bikini-clad lady every day, so flawlessly he steps in as her replacement. The thug has no big quarrels with this, and he carries on playing frisbee-throwing. But Abiline switches the frisbee to have razor blades on its side, which then is thrown straight to the goon's throat. You can't see shit like this in your Krulls.