Fit to Kill Reviews

This is the eighth in the series of action-sexploitationers from ABC-TV veterans Andy and Arlene Sidaris that began with 1985's MALIBU EXPRESS and has continued, profitably, ever since. A Sidaris pic is to cinema what swimsuit issues are to sports reporting--playfully crass and unapologetic about being little more than soft-core porn showcasing a cast of Playboy and Penthouse centerfold talent. Nonetheless, in FIT TO KILL even writer/director Andy Sidaris seems to be slumming more than usual. Martin Kane (R.J. Moore), once and future villain introduced in the previous installment HARD HUNTED, lost his stolen nuclear trigger thanks to the regular cast of sexy Hawaii-based Feds. He and his informant-mistress Silk (Carolyn Liu) plot revenge via theft of a legendary diamond right from under the noses of those same crimefighters. Once the plan is executed, the evildoers celebrate aboard Kane's yacht by having hot, flesh-heaving sex. Meanwhile the good guys at covert island radio station KSXY console each other by having hot flesh-heaving sex. The idyll is shortlived, however (though not nearly short enough), when the diamond turns out to be a lure involving treacherous Kane associate Genghis Po (Craig Ryan Ng) and his own scheme of vengeance. Kane and his main super-agent opponent Donna Hamilton (Dona Speir) form a brief alliance of convenience to foil Po, and the tale ends with the victorious heroes soaking in the hot tub, while Kane vows to be back. In all honesty Mr. Sidaris has a knack for spinning a decent pulp-adventure plot--all 35 minutes of it. The problem is a thick padding of erotica to the exclusion of pacing and storyline, plus extremely dull low comedy involving the recurring characters played by Chu Chu Malave and Richard Cansino, as a couple of moron assassins inevitably blown up harmlessly, a la "Road Runner," by their own bombs. And then there are the excessive dream sequences, more at home in a stag film. First an agent couple reminisce about a sensuous wet-leotard photo session, then Kane fantasizes about Donna spread topless before him in a mock James Bond setting. The latter's significance is that actor R.J. Moore is the son of erstwhile 007 Roger Moore, and he approaches the role with his father's trademark eyebrow-arched manner that straddles the fence between deadpan panache and simple boredom. A longtime saving grace has been that the scantily-clad Sidaris women were often smarter than they looked, but the bimbo quotient here is alarming. Watching the protagonists and antagonists attempt to outwit each other, one can only assume that they have, literally, screwed their brains out. The so-called action climax is an aerial duel between two radio-controlled model helicopters armed with lethal rockets. The deadly toys dogfight each other--instead of firing on the respective human operators on the ground nearby. Furthermore those opponents appear to be in separate states altogether; the federal agents stand in mountainous desert terrain, possibly Arizona, while Genghis Po and his accomplices shoot at them from a tropical island dock! The overall cheesiness of the cheesecake is sealed by a closing theme that sounds like a high-school marching band. FIT TO KILL was one of the few direct-to-video releases to get a TV commercial ad campaign alerting the faithful following to its presence. Obviously the franchise works, and, barring a revolution in viewer taste, the Sidaris gang will writhe again. (Violence, extensive nudity, sexual situations.)