Malibu Express

My review was written in August 1985 after watching the film on MCA Home Video cassette.

"Malibu Express" is a pleasant though underachieving throwback to the naughty but nice, lightweight entertainment that used to flourish on the drive-in circuit. Made by ABC Sports director-cum-filmmaker Andy Sidaris, pic is similar to but less fun than Sidaris' 1979 William Smith-starrer "Seven", made for Melvin Simon Productions and American International Pictures. "Malibu" was backed by The Playboy Channel (and features a song plugging Playboy as well as four former Playmates in the cast), but was self-distributed regionally last May ahead of its current home video release.

Darby Hinton toplines as country boy private eye Cody Abilene who, along with glamorous Contessa Luciana (Sybil Danning), hired by the government to investigate a Bel Air household suspected of selling U. S. computer secrets to the Russians. Mansion is presided ovr by Lady Lillian Chamberlain (Niki Dantine), an old friend of the Contessa's. Her chauffeur Shane (Brett Clark) is sexually involved with her nephew Stuart (Michael Andrews), her niece Liza (Lorraine Michaels) and Stuart's wife Anita (Shelley Taylor Morgan), and is blackmailing them in order to pay his gambling debts.

Aided by a sexy policewoman Beverly McAfee (Lori Sutton), Abilene uncovers the skullduggery whle working along parallel lines, the Contessa exposes the heavy who is selling computer secrets, Jonathan Harper (Les Steinmetz).

Storyline and minimal action sequences play second fiddle here to an awesome display of undraped chests, with the male cast including Hinton, Clark and a Mr. Arizona (Richard Brose) and Mr. Universe (John Brown) providing not quite equal time in the beefcake department to the dozen or so female pinups. No full-frontal nudity is included, however.

Other than car-racing scenes, director Sidaris is niggardly in the action department, a major detraction. Comic relief is weak, particularly the pointless interludes of the oddball Buffington family challenging Abilene to drag race in his red De Lorean and other vehicles.

Hinton is personable as a blond Sam Elliott-type in the lead and Danning is her most beautiful in a variety of revealing costumes. No one should mind that the supporting cast is mainly there for posing rather than acting.

Andy Sidaris film simply made to show off the "talents" of numerous Playmates and Penthouse Pets. He then tries to mask the playmates by creating a murder mystery to keep the flow of the film going. This has become an ongoing trend in many of Sidaris' later films, which are kind of fun. Hinton plays a Magnum P.I.-wannabee who finds himself in a murder and in the clutches of sexy Sybil Danning. There's plenty of Playmates, sex and mystery to keep an audience entertained.

Darby Hinton stars as a private eye (Who looks like a cross between Chuck Norris and Tom Selleck) who investigates espionage, murder and all kinds of fun stuff while getting laid lots and lots of times. Malibu Express is probably for what it's worth the best movie from Andy Sidaris on a technical level. Of course in my opinion his only other watchable movie was Hard Ticket To Hawaii, anyway Malibu Express has some okay action sequences (Even though Hinton's martial arts sequences are badly staged) and features tons of nudity which is the film's main selling point. The story is completely plot less and extremely hard to follow mainly due to the fact that none of the plot threads are ever pursued in a way that would make this work as a mystery. In fact the ending merely explains the outcome because the movie forgets to connect the dots earlier. Basically this is a plot less and rather goofy affair which works better as comedy than it does as action or mystery.

* * Out of 4-(Fair)

The first time I saw Malibu Express was at the 1985 Cannes Film Festival. Audiences were stunned, and the film received a 10 minute standing ovation. It would go on to win the coveted Palme d'or, proving that director Andy Sidaris is not just a director of his time, but for all time.

This is the first film I've watched from my Andy Sidaris 12-film box set (aptly titled Girls, Guns and G-Strings) and if I had any sense it would probably be the last (sadly, I have very little nous when it comes to my choice in film, so it looks like I have my work cut out for me). Sidaris's formula is simple: dumb action films with dumb heroes and sexy women. The men boast big 'taches, big guns and big muscles; the women sport big hair, big tits, and unfeasibly tiny outfits. But while this might sound like B-movie heaven, in Sidaris's hands, it all proves rather tiresome, the deliberate trashiness becoming really boring, really quick.

The plot to Malibu Express comes second to the macho posturing and female nudity, so I won't go into detail, other than to say that it's about industrial espionage and it's crap—not that the action is much better, consisting of poorly choreographed fight scenes, unconvincing shootouts, and the occasional car chase. Even worse is the comic relief, which comes in the form of a family of obnoxious, obese hicks who repeatedly challenge cowboy private eye Cody to drag races—imagine Enos from The Dukes of Hazzard, crossed with Sheriff J.W. Pepper from Bond, the Beverly Hillbillies, and those bikers from Every Which Way You Can, and you still won't come close to how inane and irritating these characters are.

The women are, of course, all attractive (fat hillbilly mother and wheelchair-bound matriarch aside), all over-sexed, and all over the hero, meaning that there are regular bouts of soft-core sex. With such regular titillation on display, it soon loses its novelty factor. Who would have thought that big tits could become tedious? I had more fun keeping a mental tally of the shower scenes and marvelling at the treasure trove of now defunct technology that is on display throughout the film (Cody drives a Delorean, and is mighty proud of his pager and micro-cassette Dictaphone; bad guy Shane opted for Betamax to record his sex sessions).

Malibu Express's wall-to-wall hot totty means that, according to my strict(ish) code, I am compelled to give the film a 4/10; Sybil Danning topless always earns another point, making it a 5 in total, but on no account take that rating as a recommendation.