Film Review: Guns (dir by Andy Sidaris)

Posted on March 9, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

As you can probably tell by looking at the poster at the top of this review, the 1990 film Guns was Andy Sidaris’s attempt to make a Bond film. Not only does the poster feature a man in a tuxedo and two gun-wielding women but the tag line even reads, “James Never Had This Kind of Help!”

(Of course, that’s not really true, as anyone who has seen Dr. No, Goldfinger, The Spy Who Loved Me, or For Your Eyes Only can tell you.)

Much like a Bond film, Guns features a secret agent fighting to defeat an international conspiracy. The agent’s efforts lead her and her allies to several different cities in several different … well, really only one country. Being a Sidaris film, it’s doubtful the Guns really had the budget to film anyplace other than the United States but still, the action does move from Lake Huvasa, Arizona to Hawaii to Las Vegas. That’s about as close as a Sidaris film ever gets to featuring exotic locations.

(If Lake Havusa sounds familiar, that’s because Jimmy Kimmel gave away at trip to Lake Havusa during the Oscars.)

And like any good Bond film, Guns has a flamboyant and almost comically evil villain. Juan “Jack of Diamonds” Degas (telenovela star and future reality tv mainstay Erik Estrada) is an international gun dealer and an all-around sociopath. He’s the type who shoots someone and then smirks about it. He’s so evil that he’s even got Danny Tejo working as his main henchman! That’s really evil! Estrada gives a surprisingly good performance in the role. Especially when compared to the forgettable villains who appeared in Sidaris’s previous films, Juan Degas feels like a worthy opponent. It’s not just that he’s evil. It’s that he’s so damn smug about it. You can’t wait to see him get taken down.

Degas is planning on smuggling a bunch of Chinese weapons into America through a base on Hawaii. The only problem is that Donna (Dona Speir) and her new partner, Nicole Justin (Roberta Vasquez), are based in Hawaii! Degas knows that he has to get rid of them if he’s going to have any hope of succeeding. (For whatever reason, it never occurs to Degas to smuggle the weapons through Guam or American Samoa. I mean, there are other islands out there.) When Degas sends two cross-dressing assassins to kill Nicole, they end up not only shooting the wrong woman but also killing a friend of Dona’s as well.

Now, it’s personal!

Except, it was already personal. In a typical example of Sidaris’s make-it-up-as-you-go-along style of plotting, it turns out that Degas previously killed Donna’s father. And now, it appears that it might get even more personal because Degas has kidnapped the Attorney General of Nevada, who happens to be Donna’s mother!

Obviously, this means that it’s time to gather together another group of misfit agents and take down the bad guys. That means that Savage Beach‘s Shane Abilene (Michael J. Shane) and Bruce Christian (Bruce Penhall) both show up again. It also means that a lovable magician named Abe (Chuck McCann) gets to help out as well. Unfortunately, one member of the team is eventually blown up by a remote control boat.

That’s right! A remote control boat! For some reason, remote control vehicles were a Sidaris obsession and it’s not a Sidaris film without someone getting blown by either a remote control boat or helicopter.

Anyway, there’s a lot of explosions to be found in Guns but the good thing is that it’s women blowing stuff up and it’s women who are in charge of the entire operation. That’s the thing with a Sidaris film like this one. For all of the nudity and the double entendre-filled dialogue, Guns was an action film where women got to shoot the guns, beat up the bad guys, and ultimately save the world from a smirking misogynist. When Donna picked up that rocket launcher, it was both ludicrous and empowering at the same time.

Guns is one of Sidaris’s better films. For once, despite all of the usual Sidaris red herrings, the plot can actually be followed and Estrada is an appropriately hissable villain. While the film may not be able to compete with the best of the Bond films, it’s still more fun that SPECTRE.

Film Review: Savage Beach (dir by Andy Sidaris)

Posted on March 8, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

1989’s Savage Beach is yet another Andy Sidaris film that doesn’t make a damn bit of sense.

This time, Donna (Dona Speir) and Taryn (Hope Marie Carlton) have been hired to perform a very important mission. You may remember that Donna works for a super secret government agency while, at one point, Taryn was in the witness protection program. As a part of their cover, they fly a plane in Hawaii, making deliveries and giving tours.

(To be honest, you would think that, after everything that happened in Hard Ticket To Hawaii and Picasso Trigger, their cover would have blown but apparently not.)

Anyway, this time, they’ve been hired to fly a very important vaccine to a nearby island. They manage to deliver the vaccine but a huge storm has come up. As soon as they get back in their plane and start back towards Hawaii, Donna says, “Shouldn’t we get out of these wet clothes?” While usually I roll my eyes at all of the nudity in Sidaris’s films, I have to admit that line made me laugh out loud. Maybe it was just the sincerity with which Dona Speir delivered it. Or maybe it’s just the fact that Andy Sidaris actually sat down, thought up that line, wrote it down, and then directed someone saying it. One thing that can definitely be said for Andy Sidaris: as a filmmaker, he was totally without shame.

Anyway, the storm gets really bad and Donna and Taryn end up crashing on what they think is a deserted island. Neither of them appear to be too upset about being stranded on that island, perhaps because Savage Beach was filmed nearly two decade before Lost. Make no doubt about it, Donna and Taryn are optimists!

It turns out that they’re not alone. Apparently, there’s treasure buried on the island and, as a result, all sorts of people are showing up. Most of them are villainous. Some of them are heroic. There’s even another Abilene cousin, Shane Abilene (Michael J. Shane). Everyone wants that treasure. Everyone except for … THE WARRIOR!

Who is the Warrior (Michael Mikasa)? He was a soldier in the Japanese army during World War II. Left behind on the island, he’s still fighting the war. Or something. Actually, it’s not always easy to understand what the Warrior or anyone else is doing on the island. The Warrior does decide to protect Donna and Taryn and both of them try to keep his existence a secret from the rest of the people on the island but that doesn’t really work out.

Honestly, Savage Beach should not have been as complicated as it was. It should have been a simple story where Donna and Taryn outwitted a bunch of pirates on a desert island. Instead, more and more people just keep showing up on that beach. Good luck trying to keep them all straight.

It’s probably unnecessary to say that Savage Beach was a mess. I think “mess” is probably one of the words most commonly used in any review of an Andy Sidaris film. However, like most Sidaris films, the whole thing is too good-natured to really dislike. In fact, the plot is so incoherent that it actually becomes strangely fascinating.

Add to that, as a result of watching Savage Beach, I now know that you can safely undress and fly a plane at the same time. If I ever get my pilot’s license, I’ll be sure to remember that!

Film Review: Picasso Trigger (dir by Andy Sidaris)

Posted on March 7, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Just from hearing the plot description, you would probably think that Picasso Trigger is a fairly straight forward film.

Basically, Picasso Trigger (John Aprea) is an international criminal mastermind and a lover of the arts. After he drops a painting of a Picasso Trigger (the fish, not the character) off at the Louvre, he is promptly blown up by an assassin. The assassin was sent by one of his rivals, the evil Miguel Ortiz (Robert Obergon). So now, Picasso is dead and Ortiz is now even more powerful than he was before.

Make sense so far?

It turns out that Picasso Trigger was not the only person that Ortiz hates. Ortiz also has a vendetta against the secret American law enforcement agency that Ortiz blames for the death of his brother. So, Ortiz decides that the time is right to start assassinating all of the members of that agency. The surviving members of the agency have to stop Ortiz before he kills them all.

That wasn’t hard to follow, right?

Now, just try watching the movie.

Seriously, even by the standards of Andy Sidaris, Picasso Trigger is a total mess. It’s a follow-up to Malibu Express and Hard Ticket To Hawaii, which means that Dona Speir and Hope Marie Carlton are back and flying around Hawaii in their airplane. There’s also two more Abilenes to deal with, L.G. Abilene (Guich Kook) and his nephew, Travis (Steve Bond).

For some reason, L.G. sends Travis on a mission to Dallas. It has something to do with what’s going on with Picasso Trigger and Miguel Ortiz but I was never sure what. But the important thing is that Picasso Trigger‘s Dallas scenes were actually shot in Dallas. (I always like seeing my hometown in the movies.) Once Travis arrives in Dallas, he meets another agent named Pantera (Roberta Vasquez). Apparently, Travis and Pantera went to high school together. The mission in Dallas leads to Travis stealing a boat. I’m not sure why.

Anyway, eventually, we get back to Ortiz trying to kill agents and the question of whether Picasso Trigger was actually blown up or not. To be honest, so many people get blown up over the course of the movie that I’m not surprised that even a super secret government agency had a hard time keeping up with who was still around. It turns out that there’s a double agent within the agency. Who could it be!?

One thing that about Picasso Trigger that made a huge impression on me was just how nonchalant everyone was about being targeted for assassination. No one seemed to be too upset about any of it. Travis, for his part, just seemed to be hanging out.

The other interesting thing about Picasso Trigger is that it featured an explosive boomerang. Here’s the thing, though, What if you threw the boomerang and it missed its target? Wouldn’t it come flying back and blow you up? Seriously, I don’t think the government really thought that weapon through.

Anyway, Picasso Trigger is a total mess but it’s likable in its silly way. The film doesn’t take itself seriously, which helps. And hey, it’s a chance to see what Dallas looked like in 1988!