Malibu Express (1985)
Magnum’s clone gets a job where everything seems upfront… but is it?
Well hello there! Hope you are well? It’s been a while hasn’t it? But that doesn’t mean we’ve not been watching the shit out of bad movies, so you don’t have to…. We’ve just not got round to posting the reviews.
But all that is about to change as we review “Malibu Express” for your pleasure, the first in Andy Sidaris’ Triple B movie collection; a film dubbed as a ‘routine erotic spy film’.
Those of you who have been regulars to our Facebook page and website will know that we reviewed another one of his films a while ago. Hard Ticket to Hawaii was a film we loved greatly for its cancerous snake, hilarious fight scenes and plenty of titillation. Hard ticket is also the second film in the collection so we were really eager to see Malibu Express to see if it was up to the ‘same standard’.
The film takes its name from the boat Malibu Express where Darby Hinton, starring as Cody Abeline lives. Cody is a private investigator hired to not only look into what’s going on at the Chamberlain household where Lady Chamberlain is concerned that her family are all up to no good but also into some international espionage where the Russians are stealing computer technology.
Cody, the hero, is cast in the mould of a ripped Magnum PI-esque guy, driving around in a red DeLorean (very similar to Magnum’s Ferrari) whilst being seduced by every Playboy Playmate or other female star wherever he goes, though it’s the Contessa Luciana who really catches his eye.
At the family home, Shane the house-boy, is murdered whilst Cody is taking a morning swim but that’s not before Shane’s character is exposed as being a low-down dirty criminal, who’s been sleeping with Anita Chamberlain and her husband Stuart so he can blackmail them both of them. Not content to work just that angle he forces himself on Eliza in the shower and takes photographs, so he’s got a contingency plan and all because he owes the mob 30 big ones #Player
As Cody starts to investigate Shane’s death, it turns out that Cody knows the detectives (one rather intimately) and he hides a roll of film that he found at the crime scene.
The film stumbles through various scenes trying to flesh out the story and apply some lightness in places so that Cody finds himself not only being chased by the mob where he couldn’t hit a barn door with him Magnum .44 but also he repeated gets hounded by the Buffington family who want to race him all the time… for no apparent reason.
That’s also not to mention that standing joke of one of Cody’s girlfriends, a racing driver being called June Knockers (actually spelt Khnockers – with a H) who loves to get them out for him, especially when they are racing at 180mph and being chased by a helicopter.
All in all, the film crashes to a conclusion that wraps up both the plot points quicker than most men can last (according to Rodney the photographer) – most men that is except Cody.
There’s a lot to like in this film; it’s very easy on the eye, it doesn’t make you think too hard about the plot and it wraps itself up in 1hr and 45 minutes perfect for an evening’s entertainment but I think Andy Sidaris was probably trying too hard at the time to make a good film, it’s only in hindsight that we can see that the seeds of his future films are started here even if he did repurpose some of the bits from an earlier movie of his called Stacey and Her Gangbusters.
