Hudson Hawk
| Hudson Hawk | |
|---|---|
 Hudson Hawk promotional movie poster | |
| Directed by | Michael Lehmann |
| Written by | Story: Bruce Willis Robert Kraft Screenplay: Steven E. de Souza Daniel Waters |
| Produced by | Joel Silver |
| Starring | Bruce Willis Danny Aiello Andie MacDowell James Coburn Sandra Bernhard Richard E. Grant David Caruso |
| Cinematography | Dante Spinotti |
| Edited by | Chris Lebenzon Michael Tronick |
| Music by | Michael Kamen & Robert Kraft |
| Distributed by | TriStar Pictures |
Release date | May 24 1991 (USA) |
Running time | 100 min. |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $65,000,000 |
| Box office | $17,218,080 |
Hudson Hawk is a 1991 film, directed by Michael Lehmann. Bruce Willis stars in the title role and also co-wrote the story. Danny Aiello, Andie MacDowell, James Coburn, David Caruso, Lorraine Toussaint, Frank Stallone, Richard E. Grant, and Sandra Bernhard are also featured.
The live action film makes heavy use of cartoon-style slapstick, including sound effects, which enhances the movie's signature surreal humour. The plot combines material based on conspiracy theories, secret societies, and historic mysteries, as well as outlandish "clockpunk" technology à la Coburn's Our Man Flint movies of the 1960s.
A recurring plot device in the film has Hudson and his partner Tommy "Five-Tone" (Aiello) singing songs concurrently but separately, to time and synchronize their exploits. Willis-Aiello duets of Bing Crosby's Swinging on a Star and Paul Anka's Side by Side feature on the movie's soundtrack.
Plot
The story begins with Eddie "Hudson Hawk" Hawkins (Willis), a master burglar and safe-cracker, attempting to celebrate his first day of parole from prison with a cappuccino. Before he can get it, he is blackmailed by various entities, including his own parole officer, a minor Newark Mafia family (headed by Stallone), and the CIA (Coburn along with Caruso and Toussaint and others), into doing several dangerous art heists. Throughout the movie, Hudson attempts to enjoy a cappuccino, but is foiled each time.
The holders of the various players' puppet strings turn out to be a "psychotic American corporation", Mayflower Industries, run by a husband-and-wife team (Grant and Bernhard) and their blade-slinging butler. The company, headquartered in the Esposizione Universale Roma (E.U.R.) in Rome, is seeking to take over the world by reconstructing "La Macchina dell'Oro", a machine purportedly invented by Leonardo da Vinci which converts lead into gold. A special assembly of crystals needed for the machine to function are hidden in a variety of Leonardo's artworks: the Sforza, the Da Vinci Codex, and a scale model of DaVinci's helicopter design.
Sister Anna Baragli (MacDowell), initially his tail and later his refuge (and subsequent love interest), is an operative for a secretive Vatican counter-espionage agency, called the Vatican Organization by George Kaplan, which makes an unexplained arrangement with the CIA to assist in the Roman portion of Hudson's mission, though apparently intending all along to use the connection to foil the robbery at St. Peter's Basilica.
On his second attempt to drink a capuccino, Hawk is blackmailed by Gates, his parole officer, and the mafia family, Cesar and Antony Mario, to steal the Sforza from the museum. Afterward, Gates is killed by Alfred, the butler. Later, the Mario Bros. attempt to kill Hawk inside an ambulance, but are killed when their driver crashes the ambulance as a result of Hawk sticking needles in Antony's face. Immediately afterwards, Hawk meets George Kaplan and his CIA agents: Snickers, Kit Kat, Almond Joy, and Butterfinger, who take him to Darwin and Minerva Mayflower. Hawk successfully steals the Da Vinci Codex from another museum, but eventually refuses to steal the helicopter design, and Tommy fakes his death so they can escape. However, they are found and attacked by the CIA Agents. Kit Kat and Butterfinger take Anna to the castle. Tommy trips Snickers, causing his bomb launcher to shoot a bomb onto his head. Hudson and Tommy escape while Snickers and Almond Joy are killed when the bomb goes off.
The movie culminates in a showdown at Leonardo's castle, between the remaining CIA agents, the Mayflowers, and the team of Hudson, Five-Tone, and Baragli, to stop the Mayflowers from successfully operating the machine, during which Kit Kat and Butterfingers are betrayed and killed by Minerva. Tommy fights Darwin and Alfred inside Darwin's limo, while Hudson fights George Kaplan on the roog, and knocks him on top of the limo. Alfred, though wounded, jumps out of the limo with Darwin and plants a bomb on it, with Tommy trapped inside and George on the hood, and it explodes just as it falls over a cliff. Darwin and Minerva force Hawk to put the crystal powering the machine, but Hawk intentionally leaves out one small piece. As a result, when the Mayflowers try the machine, it explodes and kills Minerva. In the battle that follows, Darwin is electrocuted and Hawk battles Alfred, and eventually decapitates him on his own blades. Hudson and Baragli escape the castle and discover that Tommy survived the crash due to airbags and sprinklers inside the limo. The movie ends with Hudson finally drinking a cappuccino.
| Cast | |
| Actor/Actress | Role |
| Bruce Willis | Eddie "Hudson Hawk" Hawkins |
| Danny Aiello | Tommy Five-Tone |
| Andie MacDowell | Anna Baragli |
| Richard E. Grant | Darwin Mayflower |
| Sandra Bernhard | Minerva Mayflower |
| James Coburn | George Kaplan |
| Donald Burton | Alfred |
| Andrew Bryniarski | Butterfinger |
| David Caruso | Kit Kat |
| Lorraine Toussaint | Almond Joy |
| Don Harvey | Snickers |
| Doug Martin | Igg |
| Steve Martin | Ook |
| Leonardo Cimino | The Cardinal |
| Frank Stallone | Cesar Mario |
| Carmine Zozzora | Antony Mario |
| Burtt Harris | Gates |
Reception
The film generally received negative critical reviews and was overall a box office bomb. James Brundage of AMC filmcritic said the film was "so implausible and so over the top that it lets inconsistency roll off like water on a duck's back."[1] Peter Travers of Rolling Stone said of the film, "A movie this unspeakably awful can make an audience a little crazy. You want to throw things, yell at the actors, beg them to stop."[2] It received Razzie Awards for Worst Director, Worst Screenplay and Worst Picture. In his autobiography, With Nails, Richard E. Grant diarizes the production of the film in detail, noting the ad-hoc nature of the production and extensive rewriting and replotting during the actual filming. Willis went on to become one of the leading box-office stars of the 1990s, but has not made any further forays into scriptwriting. The film was popular in Japan due to some similarities to the Lupin III manga and animated series.[citation needed]
Part of the reason for the box office failure is that the film is clearly intended as an absurd comedy and yet was marketed as an action film one year after the success of Die Hard 2. When the film came to home video the tag line "Catch The Adventure, Catch The Excitement, Catch The Hawk" was changed to "Catch The Adventure, Catch The Laughter, Catch The Hawk".
Soundtrack listing
Music composed and conducted by Michael Kamen for the film. Released by Varese Sarabande in 1991, there are eleven tracks in all.
- Hudson Hawk Theme - Dr. John (05:38)
- Swinging on a Star - Bruce Willis and Danny Aiello (02:53) - Sung in incorrect order of verses (the plot device in the movie refers to the original track length as 5:32)
- Side by Side - Bruce Willis and Danny Aiello (02:18) (the plot device in the movie refers to the original track length as 6:00)
- Leonardo (04:55)
- Welcome to Rome (01:46)
- Stealing the Codex (01:58)
- Igg and Ook (02:22)
- Cartoon Fight (02:54)
- The Gold Room (05:57)
- Hawk Swing (03:41)
- Hudson Hawk Theme (Instrumental) (05:18)
The song "The Power" by Snap! is featured, although not included on the soundtrack, when Hudson Hawk is taken for the first time to the headquarters of the Mayflowers. Minerva Mayflower, played by Sandra Bernhard is sitting on a desk singing the song while it is being played on her headphones.
Video game
A video game based on the film was released in 1991 for various home computers and game consoles. Sony Imagesoft released versions of the game for the NES and Game Boy, while Ocean Software released it for the Commodore 64, Amiga, ZX Spectrum, and Atari ST. It is a side-scrolling game where the player, as the Hawk, must steal the Sforza and the Codex from the auction house and the Vatican, respectively. Then Castle Da Vinci has to be infiltrated in order to steal the mirrored crystal needed to power the gold machine. On his journey, Hawk must face many oddball adversaries, including dachshunds that try to throw him off the roof of the auction house, janitors, photographers, killer nuns, and a tennis player (presumably Darwin Mayflower).
References
External links
- Hudson Hawk at IMDb
- Hudson Hawk at AllMovie