Hard Hunted

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.

Andy Sidaris movies are hard to differentiate. They all seem to follow the exact same template – action movies starring a host of playmates as ass-kicking special agents who are also not slow to remove their tops. Hard Hunted is more of the same. The success of the films in my eyes is always down to the women. The action movie element of the film is as rubbish as it always is in a Sidaris film. There's copious amounts of gun-play, fights and exploding helicopters but it's always very third rate thrills. In Hard Hunted the story revolves around the whereabouts of a small jade Buddha statuette that contains a nuclear trigger. The villain – played by Roger Moore's son – is after it and the babes try to prevent him from getting hold of it. And that's all you really need to know.

The girls are very nice to be fair. There are seven of them and they all find a reason to take their top off at some point. Every one of them is gorgeous to be perfectly honest but special mention should go to Ava Cadell and Becky Mullen, who play respectively, well, Ava and Becky. As a T&A film Hard Hunted is a success, as an action adventure it's completely lifeless.

After the surprisingly entertaining Do or Die, Andy Sidaris slips back into mediocre mode for Hard Hunted, an unspectacular espionage/action tale that see his sexy federal agents from the Hawaiian paradise of Molokai tasked with recovering a nuclear weapons trigger hidden inside a small jade statuette.

There's a bit more to the plot than that, but let's be honest... you didn't come here to find out about the intricacies of the storyline, did you? What you want to know is if film delivers when it comes to cheesy action, big-breasted babes in skimpy outfits brandishing guns, and soft-core sex scenes.

The answer is that there is certainly lots of T&A on show, with series regulars Dona Speir, Roberta Vasquez, and Cynthia Brimhall all stopping for a spot of nookie amidst the gunfire and chases, but the action scenes are, for the most part, rather disappointing, with only Al Leong in his rocket-launching gyro-copter (which makes some seriously strange noises as it flies) providing the kind of dumb fun we've come to expect from a Sidaris movie.

4.5 out of 10, rounded up to 5 for IMDb.

This movie introduces us, the american public, to a concept that will in the end rule the world, beautiful scantily clad women with guns that have sex with equally attractive men and fight terrorists in between. After I saw this fruity role up of genuine classiness, I said to myself... "self, that was a great movie, a movie that will have people talking for generations to come, a movie that will define a nation and break the hold of communism as we know it." And the silly goobers of America don't even realize this. I hope that this powerful nose goblin will change you to. -**1/2 stars

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". (*)