Long before he slow-motion jogged his way into our hearts, David Hasselhoff was a little-known actor waiting for that perfect role to launch him to stardom. One such role is White Bread, a tennis pro/bail bondsman in the 1989 movie Bail Out, a looow budget feature co-starring Linda Blair. This movie has everything you could want in a film: hysterical stereotypes, cell phones as big as your head, witty dialogue, and all for only $2.99 at the Gem Super Value Store in Queens.

The plot is ridiculously complicated, and since I have no idea what bail bondsmen do, I was a little lost. Linda Blair plays Annette, an heiress whose father is letting the Columbians run drugs through his warehouses. She ends up being released from jail on $1 million bail and White Bread is sent to make sure she gets to her court date.

Everything is going fine until Annette is kidnapped, twice. We know it's the Columbians who have kidnapped her because they are all wearing Miami Vice-era white blazers. Apparently that's some sort of national uniform. After a couple explosions and car chases David Hasselhoff and his companions track her down and rescue her. Linda Blair, at her sultry best, lures White Bread to a pay-by-the-hour motel, and steals his clothes and his car while he's in the shower, showcasing his vocal talents with a moving rendition of "La Bamba." Annette goes back to her father's house where she is quickly kidnapped again. White Bread and his buddies fly down to somewhere in South America to rescue her. David Hasselhoff infiltrates the compound while his friends hatch a plan to cause a distraction. (By distraction I of course mean giant explosion.) There is the obligatory shoot-out which features an excellent slow-motion shot of David Hasselhoff diving to the ground, yelling his heart out, with a giant gun to shoot down the drug lord's helicopter. The good guys make it back to their plane, and are on their way home, until they decide to turn around. And the movie ends.

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Let's pause a moment to catch our breath... Now before you run out to get yourself a copy of this flick, be warned that it comes in a variety of packaging designs, and is known under the alternate title, W.B., Blue and the Bean. Allegedly, these are the character names of David Hasselhoff and his friends, but I've watched this movie twice, and I couldn't tell you for sure. The packaging is equally confusing. The edition I got features pictures of the movie's stars hovering over what I can only guess is L.A. But none of the pictures are from the movie. Linda Blair is actually several years older in her photo than in the movie. They must have run out of pictures from the actual film after redesigning the packaging so many times.

I recommend this movie if you are looking for a slightly different taste of Hasselhoff. You may be used to him as a cocky do-gooder lifeguard, or as a cocky do-gooder with a talking car, but here he's a cocky do-gooder bail bondsman and tennis pro. If you can ignore the fact that the score sounds like a keyboard demo and the indoor scenes are never lit, you'll enjoy this movie immensely. If you can't, go rent Citizen Kane and stop whining. As White Bread so eloquently put it, "There's a time for shootin' and a time for talkin'."
--Meredith Riley