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 (Bruce 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 Cesar Mario and the CIA 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 Darwin Mayflower (Richard E. Grant) and Minerva Mayflower (Sandra Bernhard) and their blade-slinging butler, Alfred (Donald Burton). 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 (Stefano Molinari) 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 (Andie 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 led by George Kaplan (James Coburn), 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 (Burtt Harris), his parole officer, and the mafia family, Cesar and Antony Mario (Frank Stallone, Carmine Zozzora), 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 (Don Harvey), Kit Kat (David Caruso), Almond Joy (Lorraine Toussaint), and Butterfinger (Andrew Brynarski), 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 "Five-Tone" Messina (Danny Aiello), Hudson's friend and partner, 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 roof, 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 together 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.
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."[2] 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."[3] 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".
Effect on TriStar Pictures
Hudson Hawk has the questionable distinction of being the final film produced by TriStar Pictures prior to their being bought out and merged with Columbia Pictures (which was going through similar financial difficulties). Because Hawk (in conjunction with other unsuccessful movies from the same studio) had lost so much money, the Sony Corporation had to salvage TriStar by purchasing its remaining stock, and by reorganizing the company as part of the recently-formed Sony Studios. As with United Artists when they were bought out by MGM, Columbia and Tri-Star were allowed to keep their own logos, and to continue making movies under their own names.
(Interestingly, TriStar was first formed under similar circumstances: with stock purchased from Lord Grade's now-defunct ITC, following the costly failure of three ambitiously-expensive movies: Legend of the Lone Ranger, Raise The Titanic, and Saturn 3.)
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
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