Andy Sidaris’ second non-documentary movie is all about what happens when seven gangsters take over Hawaii, leading the FBI to bring in ex-agent-turned-killer Drew Savano (William Smith, Invasion of the Bee Girls, Maniac Cop), who has hired seven of the world’s best killers to take out the trash. They become Sevano’s Seven – the Playmate, the Black Belt, the Dragster, the Cowboy, the Comic, the Professor and the Indian. And death is their way of life!
PS — It’s essentially Hard Ticket to Hawaii, made eight years before Andy would make that movie, and then make it better over and over again.
Lenny Montana (the former pro wrestler and legitimate mobster who played Luca Brasi in The Godfather) is The Big Kahuna, the mob boss who has taken over the island. He also has Martin Kove, the evil karate instructor from The Karate Kid, on board as his bodyguard.
These are amongst the prettiest women that Sidaris ever had one of his casts — original Vampirella model Barbara Leigh and three-time Playboy covergirl Susan Kiger (she’s also in H.O.T.S.) — yet it’s also the least sex he’s ever had in one of his films. Plus, bellydancer Little Egypt shows up. I realize the incongruity of a burlesque dancer showing up in a movie that’s not as sexy as his other films. If you’re a Sidaris fan, you’ll understand.
It’s also one of the last movies American International Pictures released before rebranding as Filmways Pictures, just before putting out Brian De Palma’s Dressed to Kill.
As stated before, this movie serves as the basis for nearly all of Sidaris’ later films. The character of The Professor would reappear again in Picasso Trigger, but that time, he wouldn’t try to bring a blow-up doll into an airport.
There are plenty of great deaths here. Mob bosses get thrown out windows, blown up real good with bombs in their crotches, via hand-glider hand grenade, covered with gasoline and shot with a flare gun, as well as at least two deaths by rocket launcher. For me, it ranks really high on Andy’s film list.
