“Just when you thought it was safe to take a pee.”

Justin’s rating: Three Cs: cruddy, crudity, and culty

Justin’s review: So far on the site we have been either neglectful or blessed to have avoided the seminal works of director Andy Sidaris. Sidaris is best known for his deliberate approach to making B-movies — and by this, I mean his “bullets, bombs, and babes” maxim. Unlike bad movies that were created with the best of intentions, Sidaris’ films purposefully aimed at being cheesy crowd-pleasers with lots of action, nudity, and quotable one-liners. He also hired the same actors for most of his films, a 12-movie “series” that’s been dubbed Lethal Ladies.

Hard Ticket to Hawaii is the first Sidaris movie I’ve ever watched, and this only because it’s gained quite the cult reputation over the past few years. I have to say that it was a… unique experience in that it’s got the sheer weirdness of truly misguided films but some actual skill behind the helm.

It’s also got — and this is very important for you to understand — a toxic snake that escapes and wreaks havoc across Hawaii.

Two “Agency” agents, Donna (Dona Speir) and Taryn (Hope Marie Carlton), spend their days flying tourists around the islands, hanging out in jacuzzis, and sharpening their throwing stars. When they stumble upon some diamonds that were intended for a drug deal, the pair become targets of the local crime lord.

Also, there’s a cranky snake who really wants to get to bitin’.

While the girls are more than competent, they don’t turn down the help of their boyfriends, who fly in with all the subtlety in their arsenal. And by that, I mean “the one guy uses a bazoooka for any and all hostile situations.” This is why you stick it out through all of the slow build-up to this crisis, to see a guy blow up an assassin on a skateboard with one shot — and then the blow up doll that the bad guy was carrying with the next one.

You really never know when Hard Ticket to Hawaii is going to take an abrupt turn into the absurd, which is what kept me watching far more than the flesh displays that Sidaris inserts every fifteen minutes. We’re talking absurdities like a snake acting like a serial killer, a guy throwing a frisbee laced with razor blades, sumo wrestling, motorcycles popping out of the back of a van, and hang gliders that drop grenades.

Unfortunately, there’s a little too much padding and filler here; I counted at least three scenes where characters just sit around and load and clean weapons. At least Taryn was kind of genuinely hilarious with her little quirks and quotes, making the most of a pretty standard action role.

I read somewhere that Sidaris has a “spark of demented genius,” and after seeing this, I completely agree. I kind of think he was going for an action movie satire here, but perhaps in a more sly way than a straight-up parody. If he had a cleaner mind or higher ambitions, he could’ve been a pretty good director. I guess he liked wallowing in less dignity and more sleaze, so we get a lot of potential — but even more stupidity.

Didja notice?

• Bad guys do love their cartoonish rope traps!
• OK those are some very creative handmade opening credits
• The evilest snake that ever eviled!
• Hard Ticket to Hawaii — sponsored by Aviators
• You know it’s a special film when it features a song in the middle of it with the name of the movie
• Bad guys do love their remote controlled helicopters!
• The actresses point out a Malibu Express poster, which was Sidaris’ previous film
• Wait, did he seriously blow up a sex doll with a bazooka?
• The girls’ reaction to finding the snake victims is so over-the-top: “SHE’S ALL TORN UUUUUP!”
• Lethal frisbee
• Bazookas may be used indoors
• Bad man buns aren’t just a modern invention
• Closet spearguns!
• Here’s a tip — after the bad guy comes back to life a second time after he’s “died” maybe cut his head off or something.
• TOILET SNAKE.
• Bazookas can cleanly blow off the head of a snake.
• Man, you kind of feel bad for that guard at the end.