Quattro donne disposte a tutto

During WWII, Filipino commandos attack a small Japanese-held island. The attack fails and US commanders have no choice but to get the help of unconventional Major Stony Stonewall. It's 60 days before some of the leading Japanese generals gather at the resort. With the help of local fighter Paco, Stonewall recruits four women to take out the Japanese commanders. They are murderer Rose Carson from prison, selfless nurse Anna Oleson with terminal illness, Filipina Sonya with a grudge to settle and prostitute Cindy Lee Dawson on the run from the mob.

By itself, the story is solid B-movie material. I can see Chuck Norris doing this back in the day. However the movie is filled with bad writing, bad acting and bad filmmaking in general. It is bad. Its only salvation is that it has no pretension of being anything remotely good. Its greatest failing is that it's boring.

As far as low rent Filipino action films go, HUSTLER SQUAD isn't too bad. As with so many films in the genre, the setting is the Second World War, the enemies are the Japanese and their encampment on one of the islands, and the heroes a quartet of women who go undercover amid a party of prostitutes in order to destroy the complex.

HUSTLER SQUAD is a well paced little film that sometimes overcomes the shortcomings of its genre. There's plenty of incident here, whether it's the party that the Japanese hold, the lengthy training and recruitment sequences, or the all-action climax. For a low budget girls 'n' guns movie, it's workable enough, with plenty of action to see it through. John Ericson gives a hilariously wooden performance as the impossibly macho US major 'Stony' Stonewall and the rest is a mish mash of violence, explosive action, and fist fights.

Even in the grindhouse flicks you have some bad flicks. For some grindhouse already stands for low quality flicks. This here isn't a kind of grindhouse I really like. It's a rip-off of a few flicks made with almost no budget.

Although it survived the days of drive-ins and is now available on DVD for the first time. The reason is simple because even as this isn't a good flick, still some names attached to it became more known afterwards. Karen Ericson, here as Lt. Jennifer West moved further in Night Of The Demons (1988) as Judy's Mother. It was also her last flick she made. Crystin Sinclaire, here as Cindy Lee Dawson moved further to horrors like Eaten Alive (1977) and Ruby (1977) before quitting in 1979. But Liza Lorena as Sonya might be the biggest name still performing in TV series.

The story is a bit sleazy. Hustlers are recruited to the army to seduce Japanese officers and kill them in action. By doing so the enemy could invade the island and conquer the Japanese. And that's were the rip-off comes from, all those movies about outlaws coming together to rescue someone or are out to do a dirty job, remember The Dirty Dozen (1967).

There's a lot of talking going on and naturally you have the bastard, here it's John Ericson as Maj. Stony Stonewall, you know the guy, big mouth, always ready for a fight or a card game with the usual cigar. It's only towards the end of this flick that it becomes worth watching. The hustlers do kill the officers and some do show their juggs to do so. There is even, for the quick viewer, a decapitation and a few stabbings by a samurai sword.

Blood do flows here and there but on a low base. Still, for the lovers of bad grindhouses it's out there to pick it up.

Gore 0/5 Nudity 0,5/5 Effects 0/5 Story 2/5 Comedy 0/5

One that has a juicy scenario of undercover escorts, who are sent to an occupied island, to infiltrate a party of high ranking Japanese officers and then dispatch them in anyway possible. Sort of like a sleazy 'Dirty Dozen', riddled with such obvious cliches such as "You're not all going to make it back home!" and (what a surprise) this indeed turned out to be the case.

A dirtier-minded dozen, this uproariously fun Filipino actioner clearly doesn't take itself all too seriously, but it has a higher calibre of acting that makes suspension of disbelief much less of a chore! An amicable group of hard luck women are stridently put through their militaristic paces, excitingly montaged into a sultry squad of sinewy, savage hearted scarlet women! The risque plan is to place them within a late-night soiree, swollen with Army big knobs, luridly liquidating the libidinous Japanese high command with their finely honed feminine harms! Deliciously schlocky stuff that, happily, remains consistently entertaining until the blazingly bellicose climax!

The likeable performances are uniformly excellent, making it easy to root for our scintillatingly saucy assassins sordidly essayed subterfuge! Surprisingly, for a ribald, low budget exploitation flick, the zesty dialogue and robust characterisation is distinctly above average, and any shoot 'em up starring charismatic cult hero, Vic Diaz is always time well spent! A sparky, easy on the eye cast, rousing Gung-Hoe action, and quality repartee raises Gallardo's boisterous WW2 bullet-fest above the mire of B-Movie mediocrity. 'Hustler Squad' is a righteous discovery, a bona fide Grindhouse gem that is both intentionally, and unintentionally funny!