Previously on Hard Ticket To Hawaii...
Andy Sidaris graced the world of cinema with
a movie that feels like it was conceived by teenage boys, and yet was
a billion times more intelligent and fun than any of the Fast and
the Furious movies. We met Donna and Taryn, agents of the DEA
whose hobbies include fighting crime, giving tours of Hawaii, hauling
cancer infested snakes around, and talking to each other topless.
They're back for another round in what is looking like a Cinematic
Universe, so SUCK IT MARVEL.
Picasso Trigger is the third
movie in the Andy Sidaris collection, released a year after Hard
Ticket To Hawaii. This is among the more obscure Sidaris films,
a lot of this is likely due to its bizarre and non-attention grabbing
title. The Picasso Trigger is actually the state fish of Hawaii, a
very beautiful and multi-coloured fish. That doesn't exactly scream
a movie with hot babes and guns, so a lot of video stores probably
didn't order the title heavily when its name popped up on their forms
in 1988. WE however all know better, so let's see what awaits our
identical heroines in A Ghoul Versus Picasso Trigger!
We open ON LOCATION in Paris, France,
because Sidaris is not one to fuck around! A man in a huge mansion
is given a package from a courier representing Miguel Ortiz, opening
it to find a VHS tape inside. He plays it to find a recording from
Ortiz detailing the upcoming murders of several federal agents in
retaliation for the murder of his brother Luca. France Man is going
to be aiding the plan by killing one of the agents in Texas, while
other teams will strike in Las Vegas and Hawaii. France Man gets in
his car and is driven away, while his assistant gets in a sidecar
being driven by a helmeted motorcycle driver.
The two tail France Man to an art
gallery, where he's the guest of honour as he's donating a very
famous painting of a picasso trigger. After his presentation a woman
comes up to him and discusses... something that sounds kind of
threatening. It appears that was the case, as France Man goes
outside for a smoke and is fatally shot by his assistant. These rich
guys, will they EVER learn to conclude background checks on their
hired help? Honestly! We cut to Honolulu and the famed Malibu
Express boat, which is now owned by a guy named Travis wearing a
VERY disturbingly tiny speedo. I do believe the kids call them
“banana hammocks” these days. He's ripped though, so you can't
accuse Sidaris of only catering to male audiences.
I'm guessing he
must be another Abilene cousin since he now has possession of the
boat, making me wonder what happened to Rowdy? Travis gets a call
from his uncle and fellow DEA agent, LG, who tells him the Picasso
Trigger (the code name of France Man) is now dead and warns him to
watch his back. Yeah whatever, this is a LOT of story so let's go to
Las Vegas to check out the dancing skills of Kym and Patticakes, and
yes it's the same Patticakes from the last film. I'm guessing Edy
must have recruited her for the agency.
Breaking all expectations, the camera
barely lingers on the ladies and instead focuses on some federal
agents in the club talking about one of the patrons: a man named
Schiavo who engages in human trafficking and snuff films. The agents
are bitching about their inability to nail Schiavo with any sort of
case, as they're getting replaced by the undercover Kym and
Patticakes. The lame duck agents leave the club, given flowers by a
waitress that secretly have tracking devices as planted by one of
Schiavo's goons. They head outside in the middle of the day, despite
the establishing shot of Vegas showing it was night time. Oops!
They get in their car and start driving
back to the office, listening to a report on the radio about the
assassination of the Picasso Trigger, aka Alejandro Philippe Salazar.
One of the agents is pleased by this, as he was an international
drug dealer responsible for flooding the streets with coke. The
other agent notices they're being follow by a helicopter, too late
though as the passenger pulls out a bazooka and blows their asses to
Kingdom Come. Geez, and I thought Hard Ticket to Hawaii had a
lot of stuff going on! This has been fourteen minutes of set ups for
what promises to be a labyrinthine maze of plot twists and
incoherence!
We return to Honolulu and the old haunt
Edy's, Miss Edy now sporting a dark dye job. She walks around the
restaurant greeting her patrons, including one Miguel Ortiz. I didn't
notice it from the VHS tape, but he's placed by Rodrigo Obregon, the
actor who played the Unluckiest Son of a Bitch EVER in the form of
Seth Romero. His hair is much longer and he has a beard now, so it's
not distracting or anything. Miguel and his henchman leave the
building, the henchman paying a waitress to give a young couple
nearby a pair of leis. Mmm, I know where this is going...
Edy sits down with the couple, who are
revealed to be working for the Agency. After talking about how
there's danger in the air, they leave and are promptly shot dead by
two thugs waiting outside. They contact Miguel via a pager to let
him know the deed is done, the crime lord pleased and saying next
stop is Maui to kill a woman who testified against his brother. This
transitions to a shot of Taryn asleep on a house boat, woken up by a
lingerie clad Donna.
Lingerie is nice and all, but this IS a Sidaris
film so Donna strips down to take a shower, making it almost twenty
minutes before we saw boobs in this thing. That, my friends, is
called RESTRAINT. The two throw on wetsuits and go diving, which is
a good thing because the thugs fly an explosive remote control
airplane into their boat and blow it the fuck up. Aww man, all their
underwear was in there! Ortiz, watching the whole thing unfold,
leaves as he thinks the women were on the boat and are now sleeping
with the picasso triggers.
We go to Texas where LG survives his
assassination attempt carried out by a pair of thugs in a van. He
calls Travis, wanting him to come to Dallas to figure out who's doing
all the killing. He says he's bringing in another agent named
Pantera to help with the operation, as she worked with Salazar for
two years undercover. Donna and Taryn hitch a ride on a train, where
they try to figure out who would want them dead. In a nice bit of
continuity, Taryn wonders if it's someone from her past before she
entered the witness protection program, which I never thought would
be mentioned ever again. In an even nicer bit of continuity, Taryn
takes a break from her latest life or death situation to flirt with a
handsome guy making googly eyes at her. As always, she's all about
them priorities. It is a genuinely funny scene though, as I think
Hope Marie Carlton might have taken some acting lessons since we last
saw her.
We cut to... oh crap, JADE, actor
extraordinaire. He walks through an aquatic museum... and that's the
scene. Well, whatever keeps him from talking I am one hundred
percent behind. Pantera, who is the woman who vaguely threatened
Salazar in Paris, arrives at the Dallas airport. Yet another
Playmate recruited by Sidaris, she is Roberta Vasquez, winner of Miss
November 1984. As she rides down the escalator, we can see the two
thugs who tried to kill LG watching her from a balcony. She boards a
limo and leaves the airport, the thugs following her in their van.
While flying back to Honolulu, Donna
and Taryn call Jade to update him on things. I think Harold Diamond
definitely HAS NOT taken some acting lessons since we last saw him.
Travis arrives in Dallas and meets with Pantera at her hotel, the
lovely agent addressing him as Travis Abilene so he is indeed another
of the Abilene family. She answers the door in lingerie, so you can
already tell where this is going, even moreso when we learn they
dated in college. They go to a cowboy bar to dance, or in Travis'
case, have some kind of odd seizure on the floor. Travis is
definitely a disgrace to the Abilene name, whereas his cousins had a
goofy charisma and charm about them, he just comes off as a douche
bag trying to act cool. And, to make things even worse, he makes
Harold Diamond seem like a GOOD ACTOR.
This leads to an off camera sex scene
between the two, during which Pantera does NOT get naked. Are we
sure Sidaris directed this thing?! I'm really starting to wonder
now... The next morning they drive out to a cafe to meet with LG,
where Pantera discusses her belief Ortiz is behind Salazar's murder.
The two thugs show up here as well, Travis and LG leading them
outside for a boat chase scene. We see Travis shares the Abilene
family tradition of being a HORRID shot, missing every bullet he
fires at their pursuers. Pantera ends up bailing his ass out by
using a sniper rifle to kill one of them, while LG pulls out his gun
and takes out the other. Making their way back to land, Travis calls
Jade to round up the posse and meet him in Vegas... for some reason.
I'm not exactly sure what's going on here.
A jarring title card informs us it's
Thursday as we return to Vegas where the entire cast and some random
DEA agents are meeting in a hotel room. Travis does a slide
presentation to catch everyone up on the plot but only seeks in
making it more confusing as he begins to detail all the various men
involved in Ortiz's empire, most of which we haven't SEEN yet. It
also doesn't help all the unnamed DEA agents begin offering their
insights, making basically a dozen new characters we have to keep
track of. We do get a trace of the old Sidaris style as Donna
INSTANTLY hates Pantera because Travis was her man at some point, so
just takes endless potshots at her in a completely out of character
bitchy fashion.
The meeting ends, Donna talking with
Travis in his room about how she doesn't trust Pantera. She then
completely returns to her old character by getting completely naked
and having sex with him. That's our Donna! And wow Travis, way to
be a TOTAL asshole after Pantera just got done telling you how much
she still cares for you. It is now Friday in Honolulu, where our old
friends Jimmy John Jackson and Whitey are playing a round of golf.
OH JOY, Triple J is back for this one. I anxiously await for a half
hour rant about Vitamin B. Taryn goes to see her old flame and make
some golf related sexual innuendos, as she really wants me to rescind
my statement about her taking acting lessons.
Kym and Patticakes finish another Vegas
show, Schiavo trying to recruit them as they're walking off stage.
They agree to meet with him later, continuing their assignment of
infiltrating his operation. You feel like this is at least three
different movies they combined into one just to save some money?
Case in point, the next scene has Travis and Donna on a plane
flying... somewhere, I'm not even sure. They just got done joining
the Mile High Club because Travis is classy like that, when Donna
goes to light a cigarette off her watch-lighter thing. This gives
Travis a light bulb over his head and he pulls out Salazar's file.
Looking at the crime scene photos, he notices the watch on his arm
changed positions between pictures. How in the hell he made that
connection is beyond me, but hey it sure was convenient for the plot!
What else? Taryn and Triple J having
sex in a hot tub, SEEN IT. Next! Travis and Donna arrive in Hawaii
where they meet with a guy named the Professor who gives them a whole
bunch of low rent James Bond explosive devices. The Professor is
played by Richard LePore, who also played the warehouse boss in Hard
Ticket to Hawaii who was trying to get the cancer snake under
control. He's not even TRYING to be a different character here, so
maybe he's playing the same guy. Once again I have no clue.
We switch to footage of... Edy?
Patticakes? Some brunette woman working out and then getting her
shirt taken off by... some guy. No wait, that's Jade so she must be
Edy. The amount of actors in this film is WAY TOO DAMN HIGH. And
just like ninety percent of the scenes in this movie, it ends without
advancing the story in the slightest. What are they supposed to be
doing? What is going on here?! The Professor gives Travis a
cybernetic crutch that he says will “give him a leg up”, ba dum
tsss. A title card moves us to Saturday, as we see Edy and Jade
sneaking into the building of one of the bad guys as undercover phone
technicians. Why is Edy part of the team? Isn't she just some kind
of informant? When the hell would she have gotten field training?
This scene is amusing because Harold
Diamond MUST have had it written somewhere in his contract he is to
never appear in a scene with his chest covered up. Since his
introduction into the Sidarisverse he has yet to wear a closed shirt,
and he's keeping this going by refusing to zip up his worker
overalls. He could give Taylor Lautner a run for most Blatant Male
Shirtlessness in a movie. The point of this scene is our agents
arrange to meet the bad guys tomorrow so they can “fix their
phones”, when in reality the DEA are setting all the bad guys up so
they can arrest them at the same time on Sunday. Why, you may ask?
Andy Sidaris, that's why.
After successfully arranging to meet
Schiavo tomorrow for a “private session”, Kym and Patticakes
retire to their room because we haven't seen them naked yet and it's
been OVER AN HOUR of movie time already. MADNESS! I take that back,
because the TRUE madness is Patticakes says she's going to hit the
jacuzzi (one could probably make a drinking game out of that line in
the Sidarisverse) and Kym DOESN'T join her. WHAT IN HOLY HELL?! Kym
Malin, Playboy's Miss May 1982, played the uber creatively named Kym
and would go on to feature in four more Sidaris films. Malin is
actually one of the more mainstream actors in these movies, as she
also had bit parts in Die Hard and Road House, but
1980s movie buffs will best remember her from the VASTLY underrated
1983 comedy hit Joysticks. The film alternates between
showing Kym taking a shower and Patticakes soaking in the tub, which
is about the extent of their character development.
Sunday rolls around and NOW shit is
about to get real, so I hope you're buckled in! HA HAH, just
kidding! Some of the most boring and poorly shot action footage EVER
follows, not to mention nonsensical but the agents just start killing
the bad guys instead of arresting them, despite Travis saying how
important it was to take them into custody. My favourite part is
where Patticakes gets shot in the face, but ends up being just fine
because the bullet only grazed her temple. She must be rocking an
adamantium skeleton under that lovely frame of hers. The heroic
murder spree continues until everyone, including Ortiz, lies dead via
bullet holes, defenestration, or explosions. That is about an
anticlimactic as you can get!
Why in the world did the movie create
three different groups of villains instead of focusing on a single
one that might have actually meant someth- you know what? Boobs. We're not done though, because there's
still the Salazar business to deal with. Not only is he still alive,
PANTERA has been working with him the entire time. I guess that does
excuse Travis cheating on her right and left, but only barely. We
get Salazar's master plan: he purposely botched the assassination
attempt on LG so he could rally the Agency and take out all of
Salazar's cronies, leaving just him running the show.
Travis, who entered Salazar's house
using the crutch the Professor gave him, uses it to scan Salazar's
chest and type a number on the keypad. What he's doing isn't
explained in the slightest and the Big Bad seems content to let him
do it, so... no big deal I guess? Salazar rants forever about
nothing until Travis gets bored and fires a missile out of the crutch
that misses. This leads to a seemingly never ending action sequence
where Donna kills both Pantera and Salazar while Travis does FUCK
ALL, so at least there's that.
This movie is STILL going on as we
return to Ortiz's mansion where Salazar revealed himself, where we
see a foot nudging Pantera's body to make sure she's dead. The
camera pans up to reveal... it's SALAZAR! Dun dun duuu- WHAT THE
FUCK?! What, does this guy just have a cloning factory pumping out
nonstop decoys of himself? Did he steal David Bowie's machine from
the Prestige? Unfortunately for him, Travis and his
mega-psychic powers strike again so our douche canoe hero pulls out
his crutch gun and types in the number he got earlier. This fires a
heat seeking missile out of the crutch and directly at Salazar,
blowing up what has to be at least the sixth person in the movie.
With the level of intuition Travis possesses, he really should get a
job coordinating military strikes because his talents are really
being wasted busting random drug lords that pretty much only kill
other drug lords.
Another ending, another group shot of
the cast gathered around drinking. It's NOT on the Malibu Express
however, so epic fail there. Edy uses her one brain cell and asks
how Travis knew Salazar was still alive, although she fails to
specify WHICH time. Travis replies:
“Well you see I had a hunch, so I set
the computer to the coordinates on the pacemaker and the homing
device did the rest.”
THAT LITERALLY ISN'T AN ANSWER, TRAVIS! Salazar did have a pacemaker, which was
explained in one line of dialogue very early on. What ISN'T
explained is how Travis knew to use the crutch to scan his pacemaker,
or how he even knew that would work. Maybe, JUST MAYBE, a scene
where the Professor told him what the fuck the crutch could do would
have been helpful! I'm just saying... The film ends exactly the way
the last one did, with Taryn declaring she's going to take the real
Picasso Trigger painting (which she stole from Salazar's house) and
sell it. Everyone toasts to her kleptomaniac ways.
Cue the credits.
Earlier I said this felt like several
movies mashed into one, and I stand fervently by that. There is just
way too much going on here to the point where nothing gets developed
and no one gets any kind of focus to make you care about ANY of it.
I know that's a foolish complaint for the Sidarisverse but I'm not
going to lie, the previous two films were crafted well enough where I
was pretty damn invested in what happened. And you know WHY?
Because those movies were fun.
Picasso Trigger was
barely fun at all. We not only got a completely uncharismatic
asshole in the form of Travis, the usually bubbly Donna and Taryn
were shoved to the back so a bunch of other nondescript characters
could hog the spotlight. They were all dull and lack the zaniness of
previous players in the Sidarisverse, so this movie just began to
draaaaaaaaaaaaaaag. It felt at least twice as long as it was, which
is something I should never have to say about a B-movie built on
bullets, bombs, and boobs. Skip this one wholeheartedly.
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