Hard Hunted

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.

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". (*)

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.

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.