Hard Hunted

Deep down inside, Andy Sidaris has his heart in the right place. He is one of the few American directors who seem to like - and take seriously - the "gorgeous women in action roles" genre. Too bad he doesn't have the talent to back up his ideas. His three obsessions in "Hard Hunted" are girls, guns and various means of transportation: about half of this movie is taken up by BORING scenes of people travelling by plane, helicopter, car or boat. The whole film seems somehow lacking in energy, as if Sidaris and everyone else involved was simply going through the motions. The only real pleasure is seeing the beautiful Roberta Vasquez in action mode - she has more to do here than in "Do or Die". (*)

Of course, you could pretty much take any other Andy Sidaris movie, cut it apart, move around the generic chases, gun fights and explosions, add a few minutes of explanatory dialogue and presto! A sequel. This is pretty much how I felt about this follow-up to Do Or Die. It's really the same movie, except here Cynthia, Dona and Roberta wear slightly different outfits (which they strip off just as frequently), and are now hunting the bad guys rather than being themselves hunted. This time around, the minions of crime kingpin Kane (no longer played by Pat Morita, who was busy making better movies) are trying to deliver a nuclear trigger to terrorists, or some such nonsense. I forget and anyway who watches these things for the story lines?

It's all tedious crap, of course, but then every Sidaris movie plays like a low rent T&A version of Chips or some other bad 70s TV action show, but with worse acting and dialogue, and shoddier action sequences and explosion effects. Nevertheless, he knows what his audience wants: bouncy Playmates showing off a lot of skin while shooting it out with bad guys, and he delivers the goods. You have to give the guy credit for truth in advertising if nothing else.

The seventh in Andy Sidaris' series of gorgeous gals-as-secret agents films, which by this point were being cranked out on a yearly basis. For some reason known only to writer/director Andy, Roger Moore's son Gregory (billed here as R.J. Moore for yet ANOTHER unknown reason) plays Kane, the ASIAN crimelord played by PAT MORITA in the previous entry ("Do or Die," 1991) in this series. Evil criminal mastermind Kane has stolen a nuclear trigger, an act of terrorism so despicable that it requires multiple, enormous-chested female federal agents to get naked as often as possible in an attempt to restore the balance of power! OK, the plot is negligible, as it's the gunplay, explosions, and softcore sex that are the proven formula of this series, and on those Andy delivers big-time. Look for the DVD release on March 25, 2003.

My review was written in July 1992 after watching the film at the Planet Hollywood screening room in Midtown Manhattan.

One of the better entries in the "Malibu Express" series of action films, "Hard Hunted" is a quality mix of stunts and T&A. Opening in Arizona where it was partially filmed, pic should score in pay-cable and video. Filmmaking team of writer-director Andy Sidaris and producer Arlene Sidaris have created a brand name with seven features concerning a team of Hawaii-based female secret agents. First of these, "Malibu Express" with Sybil Danning, has been playing almost continuously for seven years on pay-cable.

"Hard Hunted" benefits from return appearances by most of the actors from earlier films in the series, including star Dona Speir in her sixth straight assignment. Partnered once again with Roberta Vasquez, she's thrust into this adventure while on vacation in Arizona.

The duo becomes unwitting pawns in villain R. J. Moore's quest to retrieve a jade Buddha containing a device that's used in atomic bombs, stolen from a Chinese lab.

The feds supporting the women are summoned to Hawaii to battle Moore, but the film ends in a stand-off with protagonists to settle the score in the next film in the series, "Fit to Kill".

Not withstanding some campy dialogue and Sidaris' trademark gratuitous nude scenes featuring lovely models, "Hard Hunted" develops a more serious tone than its predecessor films.

Particularly engrossing is the first reel or so in which newcomer Mika Quintard teams with stunning Carolyn Liu (introduced in the last film ("Do or Die") to steal the jade Buddha in action-packed suspenseful footage.

Other highlights include well-staged stunts involving a miniature attack helicopter manned by Moore's chief henchman, Al Leong, familiar as one of Brandon Lee's most imposing adversaries in the current release "Rapid Fire".

While initially used as alluring decoration, the women in Sidaris films are now quite convincing as action heroines, with both leads Speir and Vasquez solid in this department.

Roger Moore's son R. J. Moore makes a suave villain in his American feature debut, while Gregory Peck's son Tony is also in the cast as head good guy.

Filmin on numerous sites in Hawaii, Arizona and California belies the pic's modest budget.

HARD HUNTED is another one of those low budget sexploitation epics by Floridian filmmaker Andy Sidaris, whose entire career consisted of sticking models in bikini and having them shoot off guns. This film's entire reason to exist seems to be based on a single sequence of a ditzy blonde shooting a helicopter at the climax, and the plot preceding that is some silly guff involving a stolen jade statuette with some top secrets plans hidden inside it, or whatever. The actresses can't act for toffee but prove more than willing to constantly strip, while the male talent involves lacklustre offspring (the lookalike sons of Roger Moore and Gregory Peck) and top screen henchman Al Leong in a stock role. It's cheesy, not very good, but you could do worse.