Hard Ticket to Hawaii Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		1.5
Video		4.5
Audio		2.5
Extras		3.0
Overall		3.0

Hard Ticket to Hawaii Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Martin Liebman April 14, 2019

Hard Ticket to Hawaii isn't exactly what one would call a "good film." It's a blend of soft core pornography and B-grade Action, boasting big breasts and booming bazookas and not much else. Like its sister "Malibu Bay" film Malibu Express, Hard Ticket to Hawaii is loose on plot and looser on clothes. It's not quite as blatantly vapid as Malibu Express, but the film cannot escape the clutches of its exploitation roots, succumbing to the typical string of bad movie maladies that destroy any chance for the movie to be taken seriously, if the bare-breasted Playboy playmates prancing throughout the film didn't already do that. Director Andy Sidaris specializes in this kind of sleaze, and for as humorously awful as the movie may be, there's an underlying charm to the absurdity if one can watch the movie without taking it the least bit seriously.

Sexy blonde bombshells Donna and Taryn (Playboy Playmates Dona Speir and Hope Marie Carlton) are pilots transporting a dangerous snake via air for The Agency (Molokai Cargo). Prior to take-off, they find a case full of diamonds inside a remote-control helicopter. No sooner do they pick them up do they come under attack and quickly find themselves on the run from dangerous henchmen working for a nefarious drug kingpin. Soon, they are aided by The Agency's hunky men Rowdy (Ronn Moss) and Jade (Harold Diamond) in a dangerous and high stakes fight to the death.

Here are a few highlights from Hard Ticket to Hawaii: Sexy blonde Playboy playmates wearing very short shorts and cowboy boots fight off bad guys with throwing stars. A guy gets blown up by a bazooka, as does a sex doll moments later for good measure. A character throws a sharp-edged frisbee that slices off the fingers of the poor guy who gives a go of catching it, somehow reminiscent of Oddjob’s hat in Goldfinger (the film makes several Bond references through its runtime). There's also a weird deadly snake that occasionally eats some people and gets in the way a few times. “Finesse” isn’t in the movie’s vocabulary, and the plot is most certainly of secondary importance. The movie feels more than a bit stilted and thrown together in an effort to find some glue to hold all of the scenes together. It all leads to breasts and muscles and winds up in a big action scenes that involves grenades, guns, and even a martial arts fight that includes one of the combatants wearing metal claws on his palms.

It's a laughably empty picture, poorly acted and lazily scripted, but the movie does at least feel like it was made with technical know-how and some semblance of care for the finished product. Sidaris might make trashy exploitation movies, but he does know how to put a film together. This one is nicely shot, takes advantage of its characters and locations, and unlike so many of today's bottom-scraping films this one feels like it's offering something resembling cinematic competence, at least in its technical construction and delivery. That's not exactly reason to watch -- Sidaris isn't exactly reinventing the proverbial wheel here -- but it does give the movie a foundation, even if it's just about cheap action scenes and plenty of naked bodies.

Hard Ticket to Hawaii Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Hard Ticket to Hawaii's 1080p transfer comes sourced form a new 4K restoration. The results are imperfect but nevertheless excellent in the aggregate. The picture presents with an organic grain structure, one that is light and complimentary that lends to the presentation a steady, appreciable, and attractive filmic texturing. Details are very strong. Complex skin textures are visible in abundance, clothing lines are crisp and well defined, and the various environments are full of high yield characteristics that bring every shot to life. Colors are not found in deep saturation, favoring a lighter, brighter palette that still offers punchy reds and pleasing natural greens amongst a barrage of additional colors throughout the film. Black levels are stable and skin tones appear accurate. The stray speckle and vertical line are visible but never in detrimental quantities. No serious encode artifacts are apparent. This is one of Mill Creek's finest Blu-ray presentations.

Hard Ticket to Hawaii Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The two-channel DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 lossless soundtrack struggles to keep up with the excellent video presentation. Music features little stretch and the relative cramping and lack of fidelity -- favoring a crunchiness, muddiness, and shallowness instead -- becomes quickly evident. Dialogue follows suit, at least in the beginning where it's horrifically muffled. Fortunately spoken word definition improves with time to where essential dialogue clarity is fine as it images toward a front-center location. There's not much range to gunfire or explosions at the end or in any of the film's more prominent action scenes. Light ambient effects define a mood but do not define a space.

Hard Ticket to Hawaii Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Hard Ticket to Hawaii contains an audio commentary track, an intro, a lengthy vintage feature, and an assortment of trailers. A Mill Creek digital copy code is included with purchase. This release does not appear to ship with a slipcover.

• Intro (480i, 1:08): Julie Strain joins Andy Sidaris to briefly discuss the film.
• Audio Commentary: Director Andy Sidaris and his wife Arlene discuss the film in detail, including shooting locations, technical details of the shoot, cast and characters, the picture's opening title sequence, the humor and action, and more. While there are some comments that simply recount the plot, there are some good discussions of the how's and why's behind these scenes. Several interesting anecdotes are also shared. Fans will find this to be of good value.
• Behind the Scenes (480i, 36:54): Beginning with a few seconds of repeat from the intro, the piece moves on to discuss footage from films that Sidaris uses as an educational tool on moviemaking. It also includes actor interviews and clips and discussion about some of Sidaris' other properties, including promotional content and commentary over on-set footage. It also includes commentary atop footage featuring Strain preparing for a photo shoot at Sidaris' home.
• Malibu Bay Trailers (1080p/480i): Trailers for Malibu Express, Hard Ticket to Hawaii, Picasso Trigger, Savage Beach, Guns, Do Or Die, Hard Hunted, Fit to Kill, Enemy Gold, The Dallas Connection, Day of the Warrior, and Return to Savage Beach.

Hard Ticket to Hawaii Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

If Hard Ticket to Hawaii has anything going for it in 2019, it's that it's a good bit better than most of today's DTV shovel ware movies. Sidaris' picture has character if it has anything in the way of some tangible, if still tacky, production values. So many of today's B flicks are completely soulless, but not this one. Long gone is the era of filmmakers like Sidaris, Roger Corman, and Charles Band making bad movies an art form. Today, they're just bad. At least many of these older "bad movie" gems are finding new life on Blu-ray. Mill Creek's presentation of Hard Ticket to Hawaii has been restored from a 4K scan, and the resultant picture quality is quite good. The two-channel lossless soundtrack is nothing special, and the included vintage extras are good, if not bit directionless. Worth a look.