HARD TICKET TO HAWAII (1987)
Label: Mill Creek Entertainment
Region Code: A
Duration: 96 Minutes
Rating: R
Audio: English DTS-HD MA 2.0 with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.78:1)
Director: Andy Sidaris
Cast: Ronn Moss, Dona Speir, Hope-Marie Carlton, Cynthia Brimhall, Harold Diamond, Rodrigo Obregon
Now if I have this right the "plot" of Hard Ticket To Hawaii concerns a pair of sexy DEA agents played by the more often than not topless Playboy Playmates Dona Speir (Hard Hunted) and Hope Marie Carlton, who are working undercover as inter-island airplane pilots delivering cargo for Molokai Cargo. Their latest shipment is a large snake meant for a local zoo, but in a strange mix-up they're accidentally given a lethal toxic-waste contaminated snake, whatever that is! Along the way the agents discover a stash of diamonds hidden away inside an RC helicopter that just happens to land right in front of them, with the lovely ladies becoming targets of a local crime Kingpin Seth Romero (Rodrigo Obregon) and his assortment of dim-witted henchmen who wants those diamonds back.
The lethal-ladies get back-up from The Agency via bro-hunks Jade (Harold Diamond) and Rowdy Abilene (daytime soap-stud Ron Moss, of Bold and the Beautiful) who arrive on the island and are almost immediately set upon by a skateboarding assassin, who in one of the film's more infamous scenes is skateboarding along the side of the road holding a blow-up sex doll and a gun, during the skate-by-shooting Jade is injured, but the guys terminate him with extreme prejudice. First they hit him with their Jeep Wrangler which sends him flying through the air, and while he's still airborne they launch a land to air missile at him, which they just happen to have in their Jeep, firing a second missile at his harmless blow-up doll in a nice bit of 80's overkill!
The film like its predecessor Malibu Express is overwrought and hilariously awful, but also lots of fun. That lethal toxic snake mentioned earlier ends up escaping from it's shipping crate and begins randomly attacking vacationers around around the island. The shit-looking snake is a stiff piece of rubber that looks about as animated as an oven mitt on the end of someone's arm. Sidaris is always dropping 007-on-a-budget references, here we have Rowdy throwing a razor-edged Frisbee that he uses to take out an enemy in a way that sort of recalls Oddjob's hat from Goldfinger, with the tanned hunk giving himself a silly fist-pump to celebrate his lethal accuracy!
As with a lot of Andy Sidaris' films this feels like a cocaine-fueled fever dream of 80's excess. A bit like an R-rated mash-up of Three's Company and Mangnum P.I. with Playboy Playmates dropping their tops every three minutes or so, punctuated by some tasty camp dialogue and some deliciously over-the-top action. It's the sort of cheese-tastic T&A that will put a smile on your z-grade cinema loving face.
I did miss the cheese-ball charmer Darby Hinton from the first film, but in his place we get the hunky Ron Moss, a guy I sort of grew up with thanks to my mother's strange choice of punishment. As a kid on summer vacation I would often get into trouble, as punishment my mom would make me sit in the living room and watch daytime soaps with her, and this guy was sort of a big deal on The Bold and The Beautiful at that time, playing a fashion house impresario Ridge Forrester, who was only slightly less cheesy than his character here!
Audio/Video: Hard Ticket To Hawaii arrives on Blu-ray from Mill Creek Entertainment with a new 4K restoration prepared by America Genre Film Archive (AGFA) that looks pretty dang spiffy. There's some rough edges by way of vertical lines throughout the presentation, but the grain structure is rich, colors are vibrant, and the plentifully displayed skin tones looks natural. The image and colors are much brighter compared to the previously released DVD, but the image is cropped from the original full frame to create a widescreen 1.78:1 presentation that's HD TV friendly, but the cropping looks good and doesn't looked cramped.
The English DTS-HD MA stereo audio sounds good, it's clean and well-balanced, it's a bit muffled in places, but it does the job. Optional English Subtitles are provided.
The special features are carried over from the previous special edition DVD, we get an introduction from director Andy Sidaris who is joined by Julie Strain, plus an audio commentary from the director and his wife, 22-min of Malibu Bay trailers, and 37-minutes of behind-the-scenes footage which includes Joe Bob Briggs interviewing Dona Speir. Digging through the menu you will find an Easter Egg tucked away, a very brief video of Julie Strain nude and slipping a pair of underwear over her landing strip. This release also comes with a digital code of the film for Mill Creek Entertainment proprietary streaming service, it's won't work with Vudu or Movie Anywhere.
Special Features:
- Introduction with Andy Sidaris and Julie Strain (1 min)
- Audio Commentary with Director Andy Sidaris and Arlene Sidaris
- Behind the Scenes (37 min)
- Malibu Bay Trailers: Malibu Express (2 min), Hard Ticket to Hawaii (2 min), Picasso Trigger (2 min), Savage Beach (2 min), Guns (2 min), Do Or Die (1 min), Hard Hunted (1 min), Fit to Kill (2 min), Enemy Gold (2 min), The Dallas Connection (1 min), Day of the Warrior (2 min), Return to Savage Beach (2 min)
This slice of 80's sexploitation-action is bathed in a lethal mixture of tits, explosions and some fairly awful acting, but somehow it all comes together to form a shit-cinema burrito that pretty tasty, in a deliciously awful sort of way. I love seeing these film get the HD treatment, the restorations afforded them are well beyond what they deserve, it will make me very happy to see these films on the shelves at Walmart, and hope to see more of these sexed-up action films arriving on Blu-ray soon!
