Review by Frank

 

Much like the psychedelic sages of the sixties considered LSD to be "enlightenment in a pill," some cinema aficianados like me consider Hardbodies to be enlightenment in a plastic VHS case. All it asks is that you slide it in and press play, and in return it hands you 88 minutes of pure 1980's experience.

 

The story takes off as broke beach stud Scotty Palmer endeavors to teach his "dialoging" method for getting girls to three cougars of the male variety. These undersexed 40-somethings have hit Venice Beach to have some fun and test the viability of their aging wieners. Initially things with the ladies aren't working out for them, but luck strikes when they meet Scotty. In trade for a place to stay a several hundred bucks and month (!), he agrees to teach them the right things to say to get laid. Just add boobs, beer, and water beds and you have the winning combination for one bad movie. I by bad I do mean good.

   

The three protagonists are an obnoxious yuppy named Hunter, a corny industrial manure farm owner called Ashby, and Rounder, an overweight schlub with a completely inactive sex life who basically serves as the film's George Costanza. The characters are one-dimensional, and it's a good thing because I doubt the actors could have pulled off much more than that. But they all fit the physical type and manerisms of their characters to a T, and that's one of the things that makes this movie hold up so well almost 25 years later.

 

What doesn't hold up but is hilarious anyway is Scotty's girl-snaring methods: to use 'dialoging' and the Bigger Better Deal, or BBD. The girls on the beach, according to Scotty, are always looking for the bigger house or the nicer car, so of course it's imperative to offer that. What better guys to try this out than the older guys with some money saved? Especially since they're renting the nicest house on the beach and driving a red convertible. If all you really need is material objects to get girls, then why do they really need Scotty around? Probably because without him there would only be three old, unlovable morons in this movie.

 

One thing that's great about 80s comedies is all of clichés that are especially germane

to them. Hardbodies serves up a buffet of well-executed clichés, including but not limited to: the "becoming cool" montage sequence; a theme song that includes the movie title in the chorus; a row of parked motorcycles being knocked down outside of a biker bar; people doing embarrassing things while standing through a limo sunroof; and one that's as simple and timely today as it was then—enough bare breasts that if you emptied them of their silicone, you could fill a swimming pool and create one giant implant. It's a lot of breasts we're talking here.

 

But of all the clichés, I particularly love the Hardbodies montage sequence. You might remember the "becoming cool"-style montage from other films (for example, the teen comedy Can't Buy Me Love). It's the part of the movie when the lead character(s) turns from dork into dork-who-is-wearing-moronic-80s-mall-fashion. Often the sequence involves a clothing try-on session, a hair makeover, and the most important part: the lesson in coolness.

 

 

I love that scene. It has everything: the ol' party invitation in a bottle, the ol' hide in a trashcan and wait for a girl, and even the ol' patently illegal game of grab-the-stranger's-ass! Why can't it still be 1984?

 

The guys are pretty cool after their training, even if their methods are hopelessly creepy. Some women seem to like that.

 

All of those invitations they forced on women during the montage were not for nothing. The big party comes up soon, but not before a rift occurs when Scotty sees Hunter inflicting his usual brand of sexual harassment onto a girl on the beach. A misunderstanding ensues, and every goes to shit between them.

 

The film peaks during the big party, when a clusterfuck culminates at the beach house: Rounder's geriatric mom shows up out of nowhere and walks in on yet another of his pathetic attempts to get laid; Hunter ends up sabotaged by all of the women he's offended during his Venice Beach stay; and various other individuals are injured and set ablaze.

 

After all of the middle-aged threesome's embarrassment and effort, Scotty's dweeby friend Rag (played by 80s go-to weirdo Courtney Gains) makes out better than any of them. And Scotty finds himself in a new relationship with a hot girl he really likes. You'd halfway expect that the main three guys would have had good endings, but Ashby is the only one that could be remotely construed that way. And even he seems to be feeling too old for Venice Beach.

 

There's a smattering of other events that happen throughout the movie that I don't have room for here, because I don't like to completely synopsize plots. It's definitely a non-stop fun fest. There are few other 80s-era comedies with such a perfect mix of cheesy nostalgia, naked babes, and geniunely laughs. Hardbodies is a must-own for fans of 80s summer & sex comedies. Should be once-a-summer viewing in my book!

 

A smattering of facts:

• The awesome Grave 45 song "Partytime," commonly associated with that most famous of graveyard scenes from Return of the Living Dead, plays twice during Hardbodies. Once during the 'Hardbodies Competition' and again toward the end of the film.
• Kane Hodder, the stuntman who portrayed famous madmen Jason Voorhees and Victor Crowley (among many other memorable credits), can be seen riding a jet-ski during Scotty's beach chase scene. This scene was only his second credit as a stuntman.
Ashby all up in dis party.
• The all-girl hard rock band that Scotty calls "The Hardbodies" was played by real-life rockers Vixen. Predictably, they suck as much in the movie as they did in real life.
• Cowboy/playboy Ashby was portrayed by Sorrells Pickard, a famous songwriter who also sold a line of peanut butter called Sorrells Pickard Gourmet Peanut Butter. He was obviously a man of many and varied talents.

 

Rating: 4.5/5 Bowls of Cocaine

 

Bad in a Good way

 

 

 

If you want to bother the company responsible for not releasing this on DVD, contact Sony Pictures via snail mail (they take it more seriously than e-mail) and successfully convince them that you will kill yourself if they don't release it.