Guns

"Guns" is a strange movie: its sensibilities seem to be both sexist AND feminist. On the one hand, almost all the women have to undress at one point or another, usually gratuitously; on the other hand, the girls-with-guns sequences are played without condescension, the female agents are treated as equal partners by the men and, more often than not, THEY take charge. The action is not particularly well-done; in fact the whole film plays as if it was directed by a teenage boy trying to make a "real" movie. But how can you hate a film that contains female oil wrestling, an interrogation done with the help of a magic hat, a grenade on a remote-controlled model boat AND the incomparable Danny Trejo as the villain's No.1 henchman? (**1/2)

Boy...does this director Sidaris like to blow s**t up-but he just ain't good at it. The special effects look like they were staged in a six year olds sandbox. But you get some sweet eye candy in ex-Playboy Bunnies Dona Speir and Roberta Vasquez-unfortunately, both have no concept to emoting. And, without a doubt, you get (maybe) THE worst line ever uttered in a low-budget actioneer:

As bombs (or whatever) are blowing up around poor Dona she grabs some kind of plastic assault rifle and hollers at her male partner "Don't just do something...stand there!" and proceeds to shoot up the horizon. How can you not love it?

***** stars out of 10-mainly for the luscious Ms. Vasquez. BOING!

This film essentially begins with a South American crime lord by the name of "Juan Degas" (Erik Estrada) hiring two hitmen to kill a female federal agent named "Nicole Justin" (Roberta Vasquez). However, due to a last-minute wardrobe change, the two assassins end up killing a totally innocent person instead. This not only infuriates Juan, but it also triggers an immediate investigation by the federal agency Nicole works for as one of their own members named "Rocky" (Lisa London) was also killed in the attempt as well. What they don't realize, however, is that Juan is only getting started and he has assembled several men and compiled a vast arsenal of weapons to use in his murderous scheme of revenge. Now, rather than reveal any more, I will just say that this movie pretty much follows the same general pattern of several previous Andy Sidaris films which places a high priority on attractive and scantily clad actresses like Dona Speir (as "Donna Hamilton") and the newly introduced Roberta Vasquez taking the place of Donna's usual partner played by Hope Marie Carlton ("Taryn"). And although Ms. Carlton was probably the most attractive actress of the bunch, I have to say that the addition of Devin DeVasquez (as the villainous "Cash") almost made up for it. Be that as it may, much like the previous films in the series, the plot lacked depth and needed a lot more suspense or intrigue as the numerous action scenes were simply not sufficient to maintain interest for an extended period of time. That being said, while I don't consider this to be a bad film by any means, it still suffered from the same weaknesses as the others, and I have rated it accordingly. Slightly below average.

When I was a wee tot I never cared about superfluous things like plot, characterization or people yakkin' exposition for more than 30 seconds. What I wanted to see was the car chases, explosions, high kicks and bikini girls with machine guns. Happy happy happy, joy joy joy! Of course, one day we have to grow old and abide to the rules of Society, that forces us to become, uh, "sophisticated". We ditch Hollywood blockbusters in public and pretend to like Finnish art movies and David Lynch. But deep down inside, in the heart of that happy child we once were, we really want to get home in time for the Baywatch rerun. And that, friends and foes, is the spirit of Sidaris' work. I've seen the polls at IMDb and voters aren't fond of Andy's flims. They're completely missing the point AND the fun.

Only five films into my 'Girls, Guns and G-Strings' Andy Sidaris box set and I'm already struggling to find new ways of describing what is essentially the same damn movie every time: the same actors; the same characters; the same location; the same silly ingredients.

Guns replaces Sidaris regular Hope Marie Carlton with the equally gorgeous Roberta Vasquez and introduces a couple of reasonably cool B-movie stars as villains (Erik 'Ponch from CHiPs' Estrada and Danny 'Machete' Trejo)—everything else is exactly as one would expect: dumb plot; big breasted women in very skimpy outfits; hunks with bad hair; ridiculously large hand weapons; deadly remote control toys; and assorted men in drag (in this case, a pair of trannie assassins).

With a fraction more action than usual (there are some nice 'n' bloody squib shots), Roberta Vasquez getting topless on a motorbike, and suitably nasty deaths for both Estrada and Trejo, this one is possibly my favourite of the series so far. Then again, it might not be. It's hard to tell.

5.5 out of 10, generously rounded up to 6 for IMDb.