With Hard Ticket to Hawaii, writer/director Andy Sidaris truly laid down the template he would forever follow. It wasn't his first movie, that was Malibu Express (1985), but that one unusually had a detective narrative and male lead. Of course, it also had lots of pleasingly excessive nudity involving a selection of busty beauties. Sidaris retained that latter element but refocused the plot where the protagonists were hot female action heroines. And so with Hard Ticket to Hawaii, Sidaris created his babes, bullets and explosions sub-genre. The story has two very hot women operate an airplane cargo delivery service in Hawaii. A large, toxic snake they are delivering escapes and they get mixed up in a scheme involving criminals and a cache of diamonds. Much entertainment follows.

I've seen all the Sidaris movies and I can say with some certainty that the aforementioned first two films in his filmography are his very best. And Hard Ticket to Hawaii is definitely his ultimate classic. It has all the elements of all his other films but it has more. Like the others, it's an action flick with the great idea of predominantly featuring 80's Playmates and it also has a commendable focus on beautiful breasts, with lots of somewhat basic acting and ropey dialogue to top things off. It even features some stalwarts of future Sidaris movies such as the gorgeous trio of Dona Speir, Hope Marie Carlton and Cynthia Brimhall, plus the acting colossus that is Rodrigo Obregon. And yet, it's the extra details that we have on top of this that elevate this one into classic status.

For a start, there are just more interesting things going on. Where most Sidaris movies have pretty forgettable plot-lines, this one sticks in the mind. We have a fairly routine bad guys versus good guys set-up but running alongside this there is the plot strand about the monstrous snake made toxic by infection by cancerous rats. Its pure psychotronic nonsense of the first order of course but quite brilliantly entertaining nonsense. We also have a transvestite hit-man, a skateboarding assassin with inflatable doll, a female bodybuilder interrogator, a razor-tipped Frisbee and a finale so hilariously over-the-top, it's frankly genius. The latter involves, amongst other things, a ludicrously over-extended death scene, a snake bursting out of a toilet, a bazooka and a motorbike crashing through a wall. If you can't enjoy this I feel sorry for you. And plus points have to automatically be given to any film where two beautiful women declare that they 'do their best thinking in the hot tub'. I like too how, despite celebrating their bodies, in Sidaris movies the women are always portrayed as resourceful and kick-ass and never dumb.

This is the one truly must-see Sidaris film. It feels like he threw everything at it and just added every idea he came up with regardless of how insane it was. He never really topped it ever again but then no one else has ever made a film of this particular type any better either. One of the all-time great 80's b-movies.

Hot babe government agents Donna Hamilton (luscious Dona Speir) and Taryn (adorable Hope Marie Carlton) work together to bring down Seth Romero (hammily essayed with snarly aplomb by Rodrigo Obregon), a vicious local drug kingpin who finances his nefarious operation by smuggling diamonds. Meanwhile, a large lethal snake gets loose and goes on a rampage. Writer/director Andy Sidaris makes sure that this deliciously cheesy junk delivers what it promises: oodles of tasty gratuitous female nudity, lush tropical locations, ineptly staged action set pieces (lots of stuff blows up real good during the climactic exciting raid of the bad guys' head quarters), a winningly campy sense of self-parodic humor (sample line: "Tomorrow we kick a** and take names"), a bouncy soundtrack, bumbling henchmen, and a nice smattering of bloody violence. Granted, Speir and Carlton aren't the most deft actresses on the planet, but they are both quite charming and, of course, look great in their birthday suits. The game cast have a ball with the goofy material: Ronn Moss as amiable klutzy hunk Rowdy Abilene, Harold Diamond as mighty macho man Jade, the delectable Cynthia Brimhall as classy restaurant hostess Edy Stark, Wolf Larson as dashing he-man J.J. Jackson, and ripped lady bodybuilder Lory Green as vicious torturer Rosie. Sidaris has a funny and sizable uncredited secondary part as Whitey the TV director. Howard Wexler's bright cinematography makes the most of the sunny Hawaiian scenery. Gary Stockdale's lively score does the rousing trick. A complete schlocky blast.

I suspect that the bulk of my review for any Andy Sidaris movie will sound something like this: big boobs... blah blah blah.... guns... blah blah blah.... great ass... shower scene... blah blah blah.... jacuzzi... blah blah blah (which will save me a fair amount of time at the keyboard, I suppose). While this all sounds well and good, I'm only two movies into my 12-film Girls, Guns and G-Strings box set, and I'm already finding Sidaris's initially promising formula of big breasted babes, bullets and bad guys extremely hard work thanks to the the uninspired scripts and pedestrian direction.

Hard Ticket To Hawaii actually proves even more tedious than its predecessor Malibu Express, with a weaker plot (hard to imagine such a thing is possible, but here it is) and less sex (although, admittedly, still plenty of nudity from a bevy of hard-bodied babes); even the film's sillier scenes—a skateboarding assassin and his blow up sex-doll being shot out of the sky by a bazooka, a bad guy killed by a razor-edged frisbee, and a snake infected with toxins from cancer infested rats bursting out from a toilet bowl—are so poorly realised that they fail to make this anything but a massive B-movie bore, albeit one with great tits and ass.

3.5 out of 10, rounded up to 4 for IMDb.