HARD TICKET TO HAWAII (1987)

HARD TICKET TO HAWAII (1987)

Tagline: Pay the Price for Paradise!

(Action, Comedy, A Hand Puppet Snake) [R]

Hang on Rowdy. We got some nutcase in front of us.

In this one, Donna and Taryn two DEA agents go to Hawaii and accidentally intercept a model helicopter with some diamonds in it intended for a drug lord named Seth Romero. Seth’s goons are unable to recover the diamonds from Donna and Taryn who now find themselves facing the wrath of Seth. It doesn’t take long before other agents get involved in what becomes a deadly game of cat and mouse. Also, Donna and Taryn are in charge of a snake infected with toxins from cancer-infested rats for no apparent reason. It escapes when the crate it was in gets destroyed while Donna is fighting with some dude so now we have to worry about that thing also.   

First off, I think it’s kind of funny that this movie actually features a song called “Hard Ticket to Hawaii” by Jay Molina that seems like it’s trying to talk you out of going to Hawaii. It’s also pretty funny that there is a scene in the movie where these thugs come after Donna and her room just happens to have a bunch of posters of movies made by the director of this film either on the way or lying around. Interestingly this movie has 6 sequels PICASSO TRIGGER, SAVAGE BEACH, GUNS, DO OR DIE, HARD HUNTED, and FIT TO KILL, I never even heard of any of them till this year.  I think it was meant to be a 007 knockoff only based in Hawaii and rated R. 

This thing is meant to be a comedy, but it’s more “goofy” than comedic. I thought the score overall was pretty weak, but that is partly expected because this movie looks like it cost $140.00 bucks to make. That also means the dialog and acting is super rough. Dona Speir plays Donna and is just okay. It does seem like they hired nearly every actress in this because they wanted a bunch of chicks willing to go topless. Having said that, Dona admitted she was drunk for a lot of this shoot and partly credits her getting sober to staring in 6 more of these films and the director and his wife supporting her sobriety via giving her transportation to AA meetings. Hope Marie Carlton plays Taryn and I thought she did a little better in this than Dona, but that isn’t saying much. Dona was definitely mostly known for this series, but Hope starred in everything from A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 4: DREAM MASTER, to SLAUGHTERHOUSE ROCK and even “The Stand” mini-series. We also get Ronn Moss who plays Rowdy. Rowdy at least gets on the poster for the movie, but isn’t the star. He is probably most famous for doing the voice of Dr. Forrester in BOLT. 

It seems like the plot was pretty much an afterthought. We really don’t get an introduction to the characters and they are given zero background. We are just expected to know who they are once they show up on screen. When it comes to the pacing, this thing is all over the place and some scenes seem like they were thrown in just for the heck of it seeming to have no connection to the rest of the film. 

Overall what we have here is a very 80’s, 80’s flick that does have some decent entertainment value, but definitely goes for the hard R exploitation-wise, so just be aware there is an overage of topless-ness going on here. I wish they had given us some more action sequences because those are all largely ridiculously over-the-top and fun. I mean if you have a razor Frisbee, noise grenades, and bazookas, why are we wasting time on small talk that doesn’t add to the plot or character development. I also think they could have done a little more with this regarding the location. It’s pretty hard to make Hawaii look dull.

This thing gets a 3 out of 7 from me. It definitely has a guilty pleasure vibe to it, so I can see why some people might have liked it more than I did. It’s also considered one of those so bad it’s good, or “best of the worst” flicks. 

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