The Dallas Connection (1994)

People are voting emotionally.

Fantastic!

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

It's impossible to dislike any late-night cable TV fare that immediately gets down to trashy business with a kinky bondage-themed sex'n'kill set piece that's obviously lifted from "Basic Instinct." Of course, this being a movie from Andy Sidaris and his son Christian we also get the usual copious amount of yummy female nudity, funky gadgets, sizzling soft-core sex scenes, exotic across the globe locations, an amusing sense of goofy humor, and big splashy explosions. Oh yeah -- and there's a plot to go along with all this stuff. A team of assassins lead by the lethal, yet alluring Black Widow (the divinely buxom and leggy Julie Strain in peak wicked form) are determined to kill scientist Antonio Morales (a solid performance by Sidaris film regular Rodrigo Obregon), who has a computer chip for a new top security satellite. A trio of agents -- Chris Cannon (amiable Bruce Penhall), Mark Austin (the equally likable Mark Barriere), and token honey Samantha Maxx (an appealing portrayal by the foxy Samantha Phillips) -- are assigned to protect Morales. Naturally, the gaggle of gorgeous gals who bare their delectable feminine wares with pleasing regularity is the main attraction and source of entertainment: Strain does a couple of scorching S&M-type numbers prior to killing two (lucky) dudes, Phillips looks positively smashing in her birthday suit while both the extremely busty Julie K. Smith and cute brunette Wendy Hamilton as hit babes Cobra and Scorpion further spice things up. Alas, for the most part this picture strangely skimps on the action until the rousing conclusion, but that's a forgivable oversight. Besides, how can one not dig a movie in which the front for the assassins is working as strippers at a local rowdy cowboy bar? Both Mark Morris' glossy cinematography and Ron Di Iulio's snazzy'n'jazzy rocking score do the trick. Enjoyable junk.

"The Dallas Connection" delivers the expected breasts, travelogue footage, explosions, and even some legitimate plot twists, but it has too many drawn-out non-action sequences, probably the result of Andy Sidaris & son Christian stretching the film to make it reach the 90-minute mark. As the female lead, Sam Phillips is a poor replacement for Suzi Simpson (not to mention Dona Speir). Suzi did a very good job in "Enemy Gold", and I wonder why Sidaris didn't cast her again. Sam is portrayed as useless in the action scenes. She is easily controlled by an unarmed man, while in "Enemy Gold" Suzi easily disarmed an armed man in about 3 seconds - see the difference? Julie K. Smith and Wendy Hamilton (a stunningly beautiful woman) do about 95% stripping and 5% action. Julie Strain is fine as long as she doesn't have to speak - when she does, the illusion is ruined. In terms of the female action quotient, this is probably Sidaris' most disappointing film since "Malibu Express". (**)

Spoilers. I have a complaint about these Andy Sidaris films, that has nothing to do with things like low budgets or hiring ex- porn stars as actors (pretty meaningless complaints to me). I mentioned this about the Sidaris film "Seven", but they always seem to end the same way (the three or so that I've seen)- the "villainess" is always shot or blown up by the "heroine". Which sounds understandable, but it's often done in a way that looks pretty forced, as though it's the ONLY way it could be done, as opposed to say, the male hero doing this to the villainess. This has been done in so many other stories, too, that it's a real adventure story cliché, even though I never seem to see it made fun of as one, even in the "Austin Powers" type comedies. This one also uses, loosely, the "Pussy Galore" idea (another cliché, of course, good or bad), because the two "evil" women end up being on the side of the good guys (only pretending to try to kill the two men), then killing the woman they pretended to work for. I just think a better thing would have been for the "Scorpion" and "Cobra" characters to really BE killers, to really try to kill the two men (during those over-the-top seduction scenes) and to have a big "showdown" scene with the men themselves. That would have been "over-the-top" in a more unusual way, almost like something out of some of those "Destroyer" books. It might sound strange to half-way "analyze" Andy Sidaris movies, but again, they rehash some ideas the same way other movies do. And that's just it - there's almost no mistake low-budget action films make that big budget ones don't ALSO make.

The usual action flesh fantasy for male viewers, this Sidaris flick is not as good as a few others, but the girls looks great (there is my favorite Playmate, Wendy Hamilton, that doesn't show as much as I hope, but it's still a threat; there is also Julie Strain's Black Widow, with an opening scene Basic Instinct style that it's really good) and the action is good enough to let the 90 minutes of the movie pass without any boring moment. The plot is contrived, but it's part of the show: for a Sidaris movie it's a good enough one