Do or Die (1991)

That was an excellent one.

Absolutely the worst movie.

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

... so I will. In this one, our intrepid Playmates, I mean Federal Agents (?!), Dona and Roberta are targeted for elimination by an army of fairly unimaginative and not very skilled hit men. No points for guessing who comes out on top. Speaking of tops, Dona and Roberta lose theirs fairly often, which is clearly the point of the exercise.Andy Sidaris has no better directorial sense than Ed Wood, and not much more money, but like Ed Wood, he never let a shortage of cash or talent keep him out of the director's chair. Not only do his movies play like low rent T&A version of Chips or some other bad 70s TV action show, this one comes complete with Erik Estrada! Another 70s TV reliquary, the normally charming Pat Morita, is also here as a generic Asian crime boss, but he has little screen time in which to embarrass himself. Actually this movie is much worse than generic action TV, with laughably worse (although not actually funnier) acting and dialogue, uninspired action sequence construction and painfully cheap explosion effects. I doubt they blew up anything worth more than about ten bucks in the whole movie. You can practically read 'Fisher Price' on the models used for effects shots.The artwork on the DVD box looks better than any of the pyrotechnics used in the picture. And the plot-line itself seems like a random assemblage of action bits created by means of a dartboard, which it probably was. Nevertheless, Andy Boy knows what his audience wants: bouncy Playmates showing off a lot of skin while shooting it out with bad guys, and he delivers the goods. You have to give the guy credit for truth in advertising if nothing else.

Shrewd arch criminal Kane (expertly played with venomous aplomb by Pat Morita) sends out an army of assassins to take out federal agents Donna Hamilton (buxom blonde knockout Dona Speir) and Nicole Justin (luscious brunette dish Roberta Vasquez). Writer/director Andy Sidaris is totally on top of this outrageously trashy and tongue in cheek game here: The copious tasty female nudity, wall to wall crazy action, funny sense of self-parodying humor (sample campy line: "I'm gonna blow their t**s off"), sizzling soft-core sex scenes, and big splashy explosions all add up to produce one hell of a grand tacky time. Speir and Vasquez display an utterly charming and relaxed natural chemistry as our fetching and appealing protagonists (it's a real hoot to see these two gals disguised in cheesy brunette wigs!); they receive sturdy support from Erik Estrada as the dashing Richard Estevez, Bruce Penhall as the hunky Bruce Christian, Cynthia Brimhall as sultry singer Edy Stark (yes, Cynthia does indeed heartily belt out a lively country number), Michael J. Shane as amiable bumbler Shane Abilene, the incredibly busty Pandora Peaks as eager new operative Atlanta Lee, Carol Liu as Kane's slinky assistant Silk, and William Bumiller as smooth casino owner Lucas. The polished cinematography by Mark Morris gives this picture a neat sunny look. Richard Lynons' funky bumping score hits the rousing spot. One of the crowning achievements in this series.

(Spoilers Ahead.)This movie is so bad it is good. This movie is one of the worst movies of all time, on a par with Plan 9, but Ed Wood didn't have the money these clowns have. And frankly, Ed's story is almost better. This one is so ridiculous...Ok, how about this for starters? For no reason you can figure out, you're on Hawaii and you're at an outdoor party for a children's charity. Someone out of nowhere approaches two girls sitting at this party to tell them there is someone waiting for them outside. It is Pat Morita. He has his back to them. He tells them he knows they are high-level operatives for the US govt and that they are responsible for ruining his business, and now he intends to kill them, but he's going to make a game out of it, and the game will start tomorrow.With no further ado the two girls run off, pack their bags, get into some kind of trendy vehicle, and make it for the airport. They're not running from Pat Morita; they have never said if they know who he is; they're playing his game without question.The romp continues, through, among other places, a sandy airfield where so-called 'QSA' model airplanes are flown for an audience. Note that this demonstration has absolutely nothing to do with the story or the characters in it - it's just there, and then suddenly it's gone.Every so often you cut to a new scene with a couple of po' white trash out of nowhere who are sitting around wherever they may be doing whatever they might be doing, and somewhere they have a small black plastic box with a short antenna and two coloured lights on top, one red and one green. And then the green one will start blinking and one of the characters will say 'they're almost here!' and that's it. How are these two girls being tracked? Does anyone know? Does anyone care? The girls fly from Hawaii to the continental US, through Las Vegas, and then for no good reason end up the final 45 minutes of the movie around Shreveport Louisiana.It's brilliant. It's so bad it's good. This movie should be used in university film classes as a cookbook of how not to make a movie. And it is probably being used for those purposes already. Every scene where Estrada blows somebody up has to end with fifteen seconds on his white toothy grin - it's too much. And there is a classic scene where Estrada kills a bad guy with baseballs. But perhaps one of the worst is when Estrada is having sex with the odd girl out in a swimming pool somewhere. Suddenly she starts ripping her hair back and fro, and of course there is a strong back light on her, and this creates a spectacular visual effect, but what does this have to do with the story or the characters? It's so bad you will laugh. And then after that, Estrada grabs the girl up in his arms, and the girl twists so her feet are away from the camera so she can make more fabulous visual effects by kicking her feet into the surface of the water. You get the picture. Get the movie.I won't tell you how the good guys finally discover how the bad guys have been tracking them across the planet for the past hour and a half, but it has something to do with a 'laser microchip.' And not once in those ninety minutes did anyone wonder how they were being tracked. This movie has the worst screenplay ever written. It is one of the worst, perhaps the worst, movie ever made.There are those who say this is 'soft porn' or basically 'T&A', but don't believe them. There's as much real sex in this movie as there is in Donald Duck. Rent the movie, see it, because you know you are going to be in for a treat - a movie so bad it is good.

These Sidaris pictures are silly. If you expected anything more serious than James Bond, you'll be disappointed. But if 007 pictures don't have enough sex for you, try one of Sidaris' shows.Cynthia Brimhall looks bored and distracted in this one. (She was perkier in _Hard Ticket to Hawai'i_.) "Stephanie Schick" has a hot sex scene in a waterfall. Dona Speir and Erik Estrada do it in a steaming, night-lit swimming pool. Nice boat/plane chases, plenty of explosions. Carolyn Liu is sizzling hot as the bad guy's computer-savvy moll, and there's more to her character than you'd expect.Six stars for the underappreciated Andy Sidaris and ten for the hypnotic Ms. Liu.