Swamp Women is one of those movies that makes me stop and wonder just who gives some of these projects a green light.

The police want to recover a stash of stolen diamonds. The problem is everyone that knows about them is either dead or in jail. So they send an undercover cop to help the gang of women thieves escape jail and recover the loot. Once free the fugitives make their way to the swamp they’re using as their makeshift bank vault where they run into Bob Matthews and his lady friend. The criminals want Bob’s boat and take the innocent couple as hostages. Greed and desire for the first man they’ve seen in years lead the girls to fight amongst themselves with the lives of the innocents and the cop in the middle.

I have to be honest, if I'd read this description as a teen I might have been interested. A bunch of “bad girls” running around in the swamp? Who needs a story when you've got that? These days, though, I would have yawned and passed. I only saw it because it came in a pack of various horror movies (even though this isn't horror by a long shot) I had bought for other titles it offered.

It’s a goofy story weakly executed (par for the course for director Roger Corman actually). It features cheesy acting and highly unimpressive action. The fight choreography is downright pitiful. The situations never feel tense enough, and the conflicts come across mostly as tedious.

For one thing what police agency is going to break a gang out of jail to find diamonds? I mean it’s one thing to infiltrate a gang on the loose or even join a breakout to keep tabs on them, but in this case it’s the cop that initiates the escape plan – the criminals would remain incarcerated if not for the interference of the police. Risking lives over some diamonds? That’s going to cost someone a job.

I might be able to overlook that horse pill logic if the rest of the movie were better. I struggled to maintain any interest in either the plot or the characters. It’s a wonder this gang managed to pull of such a big heist in the first place, although I guess their prison sentences speak to their abilities to outwit the authorities.