This movie is the 80s to me. Cheap and tawdry but also earnest and full of heart. Frankly me and friends liked seeing topless girls and were too young to see them any other way. Yet this movie also had a lot of humor and action. I can still watch it because the lead guy was genuinely personable. The world depicted in this movie exists on its own terms. A cross between the world of MacGyver and John Holmes. There were dubious sequels to this film, but the same cast was not used. While Hard Ticket to Hawaii had one or two moments of fun, they never had the down home feel of this Malibu. I must tell you it still makes me laugh. Now for different reasons. It is both an embrace and a condemnation of the high rollers of the 1980s. The crude attitudes about gays and even a semi rape wouldn't fly today, but it stands as a record of a more ignorant yet more laid back time.
Review of Malibu Express
