Starring Dona Speir, Hope Marie Carlton, Teri Weigel
Rated R
USA
"We should get out of these wet clothes."
Andy Sidaris's third film in his epic series of Hawaiian crime capers, Savage Beach is sort of a Gilligan's Island with silicone-enhanced nudity and bloody gun play. At the film's beginning, the dynamic duo of Donna and Taryn (Dona Speir and Hope Marie Carlton) are busting up a ring of drug dealers who have been cleverly smuggling cocaine in pineapples. They barely have time to catch their breath and cinch up their micro-shorts before they have jump into their cargo plane and fly to a remote island to deliver vaccines for a group of orphans (!) before they all die from some mysterious tropical paradise-related disease. On the way back, they fly right into a dangerous storm, and are forced to land on an uncharted, mostly deserted island. I say 'mostly' because there's a Japanese soldier running around with a Samurai sword who thinks that the war is still on.Meanwhile, the CIA, the navy, a bunch of South American communists, a few mercenaries, and the Filipino government are all headed to the very same island, because there's a multi-million dollar stash of gold hidden there, a left-over from the war. The very same stash that the confused Japanese soldier is still guarding there.
Eventually, everybody ends up on the tiny island armed to the teeth and determined to get the gold first. Mayhem, as you might have guessed, ensues.
Besides an odd dip into high melodrama at the film's climax, Savage Beach contains all the primary Sidaris elements, only this time they happen all at once, and in one tiny location. This makes for some fast-paced cat and mouse (or, more accurately, Tom and Jerry) chase scenes, with the stray soldier acting as a crusty-faced guardian angel for our two heroines. The film also benefits from an outrageous appearance by Penthouse Pet Teri Weigel as a determined Sandanista in Lita Ford's clothes. Her death scene is a classic, as she spouts revolution-speak while blood pours out of her belly like someone just whacked open a barrel of red wine with an axe. And in the end, tube dresses and cocktails all around. Even when the body count is racked up to the dozens, you can always count on a happy ending in an Andy Sidaris film.- Ken McIntyre
