“You want romance? Read a novel.”

Drake’s rating: Ick.

Drake’s review: Well, I brought this one on myself. When I reviewed Spring Break a few months ago, I foolishly name-dropped related movies without reviewing my Mutant Contract. Because sure enough, right there in Section 17, paragraph 3, it states “If you mention an unreviewed movie in your review, you’re responsible for reviewing said movie.” Now granted, this paragraph is buried deep in the fine print, and when I say “fine print” I mean you need a microscope to read it. But it’s right there, in stark green and white.

Mutant Contracts are written is toxic sludge, by the way. Justin tells me that makes them easier to read in the dark.

But I digress, mainly because I really don’t want to review this movie.

So, I’m not going to lie to you here: Hardbodies is a bad movie. And, OK, sure, the teen sex-comedy genre is not exactly filled with exceptional examples of filmmaking, but even by the somewhat questionable standards involved, this one is bad. It starts off innocuously enough, with your general beach scenes full of bikini-clad beauties, the guys ogling them, and jerks looking to make trouble. Pretty standard beach movie stuff.

But then the real plot of the film gets going. Three middle-aged men (and we’ll just call them Tall Skeevy Guy, Chubby Guy, and Cowboy Guy) arrive, having rented a house on the beach, and they’re looking for a good time. Now, their definition of a good time could have entailed acting their age and dating women who were born before Lyndon Johnson became president (this being 1984, remember), but no. Instead they set their sights on the local beach girls who are a good 20 to 30 years younger, and when that doesn’t pan out, they hire the local Big Man of the Beach to bring them girls. He insists he’s not a pimp, and the movie really wants him to be the hero, but… yeah.

And that’s the central problem with Hardbodies. What should be a fairly brainless beach romp instead has a layer of sleaze that makes it an unpalatable watch. Now, I have no problem with sleazy movies. Nineteen-seventies independent studios were practically built on a foundation of sleaze, and I’ve seen and enjoyed far too many of those films to complain too much about their less-savory elements. But those films leaned into the sleaze. Lacking budgets and named stars, they relied instead on whatever exploitation element they could dream up to get into grindhouse theaters and drive-ins across the country. The sleaze wasn’t accidental, it was the point.

Hardbodies, however, wants to play it coy. It wants you to cheer for the hero who is enabling these middle-aged men in their attempts to seduce women who are young enough to be their daughters, and worse, it wants to do it with a playful wink and a nod. There’s a real “boys will be boys” vibe to Hardbodies, and even the movie itself seems to eventually realize it. Cowboy Guy tells off the other two, and Tall Skeevy Guy and Chubby Guy get a measure of comeuppance for their sleazy antics.

This is the ‘80s, after all.

But that measure of accountability feels tacked-on, and doesn’t make up for the rest of the movie. It’s just a wink and a nod, and occurs long after you’ve stopped caring about what happens to any of the main characters.

If there’s one good thing I can say about Hardbodies, it’s that it features the rock band Vixen very early in their career. They sing a few songs and get a bit of dialogue as part of a sub-plot that’s far more interesting than the rest of the movie.

Intermission!

• Oh, no. I’m done with this review. There’s nothing interesting enough to write an addendum about.
• OK, well, there is one thing: Hardbodies was originally made for broadcast on the Playboy Channel, but was deemed too softcore for what they wanted. Columbia Pictures, which at one time had featured stars such as Ann Sothern, Rita Hayworth and William Holden, picked it up for theatrical distribution.
• Also, 45 Grave’s “Partytime” can be heard in the background at a party in the film, a year before it became popularized as the theme song for Return of the Living Dead.
• And Kane Hodder, the future Jason Voorhees, did stunts for this movie, and appeared (without a hockey mask) as one of the beach ruffians.
• Nope, that’s it. I’m done. I’m going to go get my hazmat suit, my microscope, and see what else I might have glossed over in my Mutant Contract.