Title: Bikini Bandits Experience
Director: Steve Grasse
Released: 2002
Starring: Maynard James Keenan, Dee Dee Ramone, Jello
Biafra, Corey Feldman, Peter Grasse, Larry McGearty, Bret Reilly,
Heather-Victoria Ray, Heather McDonnell, Betty San Luis, Cynthia Diaz, Robyn
Bird, Clark O’Donnel
Plot: Following the Bikini Bandits a four strong gang of
bikini loving, muscle car driving and machine gun welding bad asses, as they
embark on a series of ever more random adventures, which see them being sent to
hell and even traveling though time.
Review: Honestly I originally had zero plans to review this
film, happy to write it off as another zero which failed to turn out more.
However since that original viewing something strange happened as I found myself
still thinking about the film and frequently finding myself talking about it to other cult
cinema fans, about this film which is honestly largely a horrible mess, yet at
the same time projects an aura that somewhere in this hour long jumble of ideas
and random plots there was something special lurking under the titillating and confused surface.
Originally the Bikini Bandits were launched as a series of short films via the now
defunct Atomfilms.com and would be there that the series slowly gained a cult following of sorts as
the girls embarked on a series of increasingly random adventures the majority
of which have now been edited into this film. At the same time they have also been padded out with new shorts
which see director Grasse taking stabs at American consumerism via home
shopping commericals for the fictional conglomerate Gmart, aswell as going off
on further random tangents with the beyond creepy “Morning Yoga” and the
seemingly shot on the cuff “Zembo” segments were a fez wearing Zembo basically
harasses unsuspecting members of the public about if they know who the Bikini
Bandits are. Needless to say with the exception of the Gmart segments which
also features a John Waters Alike who along with his fellow host stop them from
seeing like yet more filler thanks to their tone perfect performances.
Due to the film essentially being a best of collection of
those original shorts loosely tied together with increasingly random filler, the film is unquestionably disjoined to say the least and
makes for an experience similar to watching TV while your ADD suffering friend
frequently flicks through the channels. At the same time the various
misadventures the bandits find themselves on haven’t been developed beyond
their original shorts so hence most of the adventures revolve around the girls
finding themselves in an interesting situation before Grasse turns it into yet
another excuse for cheap thrills as the stories are often suddenly ended with
the girls engaging in some form of Andy Sidaris inspired slap and tickle or
tormenting whatever male character happens to be nearby. Of course such antics
are not only kept to the Bandit segments as they also make up a series of mock
adverts for muscle cars, which generally consist of bikini clad ladies welding
guns and draping themselves over the car. Still if this wasn’t enough
titillation for you already, we also get the “Imports Suck” segement which
consists solely of bikini clad ladies taking sledgehammers to a car….still
whatever floats your boat right. How much of the film was inspired by the films
of Andy Sidaris who essentially pioneered the Girls and guns film with the
likes of “Return to Savage Beach” and “Hard Ticket To Hawai” its hard to say especially when it also
seems to be a questionable homage to as well as grindhouse cinema, if perhaps with none of
the style that Rodriguez and Tarantino brought with their own homages which
kick-started the Neo-grindhouse genre.
The only developed story we do get being “Bikini Bandits Go
To Hell” thanks to its original multipart structure which sees the girls being the girls being tasked by Giant penis
codpiece wearing Satan (Keenan) to deflower the Virgin Mary or face being
forced to watch 80’s favourite Corey Feldman dance for all eternity. It is
probably around this point were most people will choose if they stick with this
film or not, especially when Grasse doesn’t seem to give much a damn about who
he offends, as he frequently it would seem is aiming to offend whenever possible.
This in turns leads me to my main peeve with the this film in its frequent use
of the word retard, with the apparent thinking that the mental handicapped make
for the best source of amusement, especially with two of the stories revolving
around such characters. The film though is always at its strongest when playing
things straight and not aiming for such crude stabs at comedy, while these misfire attempts at comedy can't help but bring to mind "The Underground Comedy Movie" which was yet another underground series turned into a feature with equally questionable results.
Surprisingly for such a T&A focused film the performances aren't
overly bad, even if the girls are hardly being forced to do anything overly challenging
performance wise, which can’t be said for most of the male cast, who often end up
coming off like crude and overplayed but then the majority are played by Grasse’s brother
Peter so chances are that Grasse was saving budget by having him play so many
roles. Rounding out the cast though we do also get a number of interesting
musical cameos with Tool frontman Maynard James Keenan really giving a standout
performance as Satan, while Dee Dee Ramone makes for an interesting choice to
play the pope, especially as he doesn’t exactly seem to know where he is as he
bumbles from through his lines. Elsewhere we also get Dead Kennedys frontman Jello
Biafra appearing as a sleazy porn producer which sadly sees him majorly
underused.
The most interesting casting choice here though is Corey
Feldman appearing here as, well err…himself. What makes his appearance here so interesting
is just how clear it is that he had no clue what he was signing up for, which
is only made the clearer when Grasse includes what appears to be footage of an
unsuspecting Feldman slagging off the film and making comments about what a
piece of trash it is and how he’s been made to look like a joke. True it’s hard
to fault his reasoning especially when his contributions are so random and
range from him busting some Michael Jackson style movies to having a drag race
with an overweight Mexican masked wrestler. However when combined with the rest
of the film it hardly seems out of place especially with the logic that this
film runs on. On the whole though it is hard to tell if his casting was out of an obsession with his 80's glory days and that having cast him realised that they had nothing for him to do, of if it was to truly see what they could get away making his current career stalled self do.
Despite running for a mere 60 minutes the experience does
feel a lot longer, yet it is hard to fault that there is still something about
this film, in much the same way that there is with films like “The Room” and “Boardinghouse”.
True it might seem like it is intentionally trying to emulate the so bad its
good style of those films, but this film has enough weird ideas and general titillation
to make it the sort of film that’s fun to dig out and maybe freak out your
friends with.
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