The Dallas Connection
Assassins led by Black Widow are out to kill Antonio Morales to prevent him from handing a computer chip over to IWAR headquarters. It's up to secret agents Chris Cannon, Mark Austin, and Samantha Maxx to stop them
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- Cast:
- Bruce Penhall , Mark Barriere , Julie Strain , Rodrigo Obregón , Samantha Phillips , Julie K. Smith , Wendy Hamilton
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Reviews
I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.
Very well executed
Excellent but underrated film
It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.
The Dallas Connection is one of the later films from Andy Sidaris. Well, strictly speaking, this one was actually directed by his son Drew and produced by Andy. But you would be doing better than me if you noticed any difference because no matter who directed this one, it's exactly the same as all the others that go under the Sidaris name. Like the rest, this one is an action flick that relies very heavily on beautiful large breasted women who lose their clothes on a regular basis. Without the ladies, most of Sidaris films would be hopeless and this one is no exception.Its story really isn't worth describing, except to say that it revolves around a trio of professional female killers called Black Widow, Cobra and Scorpion. These femme fatales are played by Julie Strain, Julie K. Smith and Wendy Hamilton. Fortunately, all of them disrobe frequently to frolic about in, amongst other places the shower and a strip club. Julie Strain seduces a restrained man in dominatrix PVC gear in a standout moment but best of all is the truly mesmerizingly sexy Julie K. Smith frolicking around in a hot tub with some lucky 'victim'. Its soft-core erotica basically but with a very high calibre of eye candy. Aside from this the plot-line plods along in an uninspired way, although there are some agreeably stupid moments like death by exploding golf ball and the ludicrous blow-up doll scene. My advice would be to watch it for the ladies and tolerate the rest.
"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". (**)
I watched this movie last night - largely because of all the little people in the cast. Their guns were bigger than they were. Those secret radios that the good guys were given - what were they, Sony Walk abouts? Do the actors get paid when they make something like this? My favorite little guy was Bruce Penhall (from Chips), if he's 4'9" tall I'll eat my boots. Best scene was when of the little guys was at the beach with his jet ski and a babe shows up wearing a thong bathing suit and leather high heeled boots that went up to her crotch. I can't count the number of times I've seen that same outfit at the beach - it's so practical. I kept waiting for Erik Estrada to make a cameo, everything else I've seen his personal butt boy (Bruce Penhall) in has also had Erik making a grease show of it. Erik was probably booked making his land commercials for that hillbilly resort in Arkansas. All this film lacked was a mud wrestling scene.
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.