I’ll start by laying out the three basic schools of thought about why HUDSON HAWK crashed and burned.

1. The McClane Factor. Audiences had originally loved Bruce as David Addison on MOONLIGHTING. Nobody expected DIE HARD to be so good. But it re-invented action and it re-invented Bruce. Sure, they still had a taste for David Addison, but they hungered for John McClane, especially right here in 1991. Moonlighting was over, DIE HARD 2 had just happened, Comedy Bruce had been shed to reveal Action Bruce fully grown beneath… then all the sudden he comes out with this. It’s like, all due respect to the black eye mask, but right after you see THE BIG BOSS or FIST OF FURY for the first time you’re not anxious for Bruce Lee to go back to playing Kato.

HUDSON HAWK is way more MOONLIGHTING than DIE HARD. His character is the opposite of John McClane in many ways. McClane is a cop, Hawk is a cat burglar. McClane is a working stiff, Hawk loves cappucino. McClane wears an undershirt and no shoes, Hawk a fancy black overcoat and hat. McClane makes smartass comments to leaven his seemingly doomed situation, when Hawk makes them it emphasizes his fearlessnes. McClane is having trouble keeping his marriage together, Hawk is so smooth he scores a hot nun. If you went into this movie hoping to see a character kind of like John McClane you would feel a little like Karl hanging from a chain.

2. The media was out to get Bruce. This seems to be Bruce’s theory. Some of the critics and other media establishment individuals weren’t onboard the Nakatomi Express yet. They looked down their noses at DIE HARD, especially after there was a sequel. They thought it was low culture, dumb violence for dumb people. So they wanted Bruce to fall on his ass, and this obviously self-indulgent pet project with a cocky attitude and shameless silliness was too juicy a target to pass up. It was panned viciously and that may have contributed to its financial failure.

3. It wasn’t very good.

Which of these is the real reason? I have always believed it was a Neopolitan ice cream style striped-combo of the three. But after my latest viewing I put less emphasis on the third one. I think I’ve seen it three times now, and each time liked it better than before. Admittedly it started at a pretty low level of liking, but this time was the best so far. It doesn’t all work, but if you’re in the right mood it’s funny and unusual.

Bruce plays Eddie something, aka the Hudson Hawk, or I thought that’s what they said but at some point they seem to switch to Hudson Hawk being his actual name. Anyway he’s a very talented cat burglar just out of the joint, relaxing and discussing a straight career path with his brother and co-bar owner Tommy Five-Tone (Danny Aiello) when some crooks called the Mario Brothers (no relation) force them to do a museum heist. This turns out to be a setup by nefarious CIA man James Coburn and a team of younger agents (he calls them “the MTV-IA”) code-named after candy bars.

In the movie’s most perfectly surreal moment he’s just survived a harrowing high speed gurney-roll through freeway traffic when David Caruso rappels down from who knows where and holds out a card that says, “MY NAME IS KIT KAT. THIS IS NOT A DREAM.” Next thing you know the Hawk is poisoned, packed in styrofoam shipping peanuts and flown to Rome where he’s forced to steal Leonardo Da Vinci’s codex from the Vatican. In the process he falls for a pretty girl (Andie McDowell) who’s trying to keep the Vatican’s artifacts safe, and he turns out to be embroiled in an evil plot to rebuild a hidden Da Vinci invention that creates gold (not because they want to be rich but because they want to destroy the world economy).

Jesus, I gotta add theory #4, that the movie failed because these were the fucking movie posters they made:

That stupid one on the left I remember as the poster but also I found this one on the right, which says:

Shy.
Sensitive.
Law-abiding.
Polite.
Respectful.
–I don’t think so.

For Christ’s sake, man. I know somebody probly worked hard at least on the typography there on one of them, and everybody has bills to pay. Don’t want to make anybody feel bad, but come on. Let’s have some pride in our work, fellas. I personally believe you could’ve done better. just my 2 cents.

The screenplay was credited to two writers, Steven E. de Souza (the E is for Excellence [nah, just kidding, it's so he doesn't get confused with all the other Steven de Souzas]) and Daniel Waters. De Souza is famous for being one of the writers of DIE HARD, and his credits also include 48 HOURS, COMMANDO and RICOCHET. But also THE FLINSTONES, BEVERLY HILLS COP 2-3, STREET FIGHTER (also director), JUDGE DREDD, and as much as I love it I gotta say KNOCK OFF. Waters meanwhile is known as the visionary writer of HEATHERS, but also had a streak of big studio movies: THE ADVENTURES OF FORD FAIRLANE, then this, BATMAN RETURNS and DEMOLITION MAN. My guess is that de Souza wrote the thing up based on Bruce and his friend Robert Kraft’s story notes, then Waters probly went in and rewrote all the dialogue.

The weak side of it is the summer event movie side of it. It has that early ’90s mediocre studio fantasy adventure feel, with effects by ILM (for a Da Vinci flying machine and exploding gold machine) and a score working itself up too much trying to sound epic and thrilling no matter what’s on screen. If this was supposed to work on multiple levels I don’t think the fantasy adventure level quite succeeded. Bruce does too much swinging around and falling with comical looks on his face for the action to have any weight to it, and Richard E. Grant and Sandra Bernhard are too campy and over the top as the villains to be taken seriously at all.

I mean I’m just saying I doubt anybody’s watching this thing excited to get to the flying machine sequence.

But as a comedy it’s much more successful because it’s jam-packed with goofy little touches (a bomb shooting onto a thug’s head, Caruso painted silver and disguised as a statue) and a Shane Blackian amount of quips. Everybody always has a smartass comment to rattle off to everybody else’s smartass comment. They’re even making clever quips when they claim that they can’t make clever quips. At one point Coburn says, “I wish I could come up with this glib repartee the way you guys can. But I can’t, so I’ll just paralyze you.”

And glib is just the right word for it. Everybody jokes to cover any fear of death they may have. When they’ve been paralyzed and shown a shocking USA Today cover story Hawk and Tommy try to get them to turn to section B to check the Mets score.

I’m sure some of you will quote your favorite lines in the comments. Here’s a couple of mine:

Asked how much time he did Hawk says, “Put it this way. I never saw E.T.”

Richard E. Grant The butler guy slashes the mobster and says, “So much for his cut.” Then, “Forgive my dry British humor.”

The moronic Butterfinger thinks he’s in France (he’s in Italy) and announces, “Ah, to be in Par-ee and in love!”

Also, one of the most ridiculous one-liners ever, after somebody gets beheaded: “I guess you won’t be going to that hat  convention in July!”

(why July? Hudson Hawk really has a detailed idea of this imaginary hat convention. I’m surprised he didn’t say where it happens and how much it costs for a VIP badge.)

I like the candy bar agents, a colorful bunch of characters. The standout is Butterfinger, a huge, dumb oaf with a Boz-like haircut. When part of a plan is going awry he asks, “You want me to rape him?” so they distract him with his copy of One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish. When he’s shot he calls Coburn “coach.” Then there’s the mute Kit Kat. As he falls over dead thankfully he has a card prepared that says, “I ALWAYS LIKED YOU.”

If you’re like me, the main thing you remember about this movie is the heist sequence at the beginning, where Hawk and Tommy sing “Would You Like To Swing On a Star” to themselves while sneaking around the museum, because they have the lengths of songs memorized and use them to time their movements. Of course this makes no sense at all, and Tommy even points it out (”You know they invented something while you were inside – it’s called ‘the watch’”). But if you just go with it it makes for a fun little musical number. Aiello actually isn’t a bad singer and Bruce does better than on RETURN OF BRUNO.

This actually has a bit of that Bruno in it, because it’s Bruce indulging his white bluesman sensibilities, showing off what songs he loves and thinking he looks real fuckin cool adjusting that hat all the time.

What I didn’t know until I watched the DVD extra “The Story of Hudson Hawk” is that this movie comes entirely out of Bruce’s music-playing. It’s actually a really good half hour featurette of Bruce and co-story writer/music supervisor Robert Kraft. Kraft is at the piano for the whole interview and plays and sings the theme song much more appealingly than Dr. John did on the end credits. They explain that they met in 1979 when Kraft’s band was performing in a club. Bruce was in the audience and was presumptuous enough to pull out a harmonica and start playing with them. You’d think this would get Bruce beat up, but instead they became friends. Later Kraft wrote the song, Bruce vowed it would be a movie some day, many years passed and then somehow he turned out to be right.

So for Bruce fans this is a must-see, because it shows you so much of Bruce’s personality. It captures his wiseass side, his musical persona, a little bit of his action side, his Jersey pride and his friendship with Kraft. It shows that as much as we love Action Bruce it’s not a bad idea to invite Comedy Bruce out every once in a while. This movie has really grown on me over the years, from “not very good” to “actually has some funny parts” to “for the most part I like this!”

a couple notes:

1. I don’t know why they’re making such a big deal about Willis and Stallone working together on THE EXPENDABLES, because they already worked together on this one. Well, Frank Stallone, anyway.

2. This was not the first time Bruce collaborated with Kraft on a movie. Kraft wrote a song for LOOK WHO’S TALKING TOO.

3. IMDb’s database recommends that if I like HUDSON HAWK I may also like Jodorowsky’s HOLY MOUNTAIN and BLUE STREAK starring Martin Lawrence.

[ratings]

What the fuck is this?

I mean you got the hottest action producer, Joel Silver of DIE HARD and LETHAL WEAPON fame. He’s got the rights to this “rock ‘n roll detective” character taken from some magazine column or Herfy’s tray-liner comic strip or something. To rewrite the script he hires Daniel Waters, hot shit young writer of HEATHERS in his first for-hire job. But who can we get to direct? Who is rock ‘n roll enough? How about that Finnish guy who did NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 4? His hair is practically to his ass, I think he could do it. Renny Harlin had been toiling away on a version of ALIEN 3 that never got made, and this was kind of his entry into the world of action. In fact, Joel Silver hired him for DIE HARD 2 after seeing the dailies for this one.

So they had these hungry young, not-yet-burnt-out newcomers behind the camera, but these days nobody remembers that. They only remember the star, Andrew “Dice” Clay. It hadn’t been originally written as a vehicle for him, but after he signed on obviously they rewrote it to be about an obnoxious sexist asshole dickhead Elvis impersonating dweeb who insults everybody and makes jokes and then says “Ooooohhhh!”

It’s kind of a weird idea, actually. Charles Bronson, Clint Eastwood, Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger – all of these guys made action movies where they said funny lines. This is also an action movie, but instead of funny lines he has jokes. He says the line and then “waaaaaaahhhH!” or “Whoooahhh!” or “Un-buh-LEEV-uh-bull!” so you know that was the punchline. Some kind of vaudeville thing or something. It’s like if Johnny Carson had made a cop movie and after he shoots the bad guy he makes a joke and then mimes swinging a golf club.

I guess I should explain in case – and I really hope this is the case – the younger generations and people from other countries don’t know who the hell Andrew “Dice” Clay is. He is a comedian and phenomenon that could’ve only existed in the ’80s. He’s got a pompadour and sideburns and his persona is an arrogant dude from Brooklyn who brags about who he’s fucked and things like that. Right around the time this movie was being made he was becoming hugely popular, but also controversial because his jokes were so misogynistic and sometimes homophobic and what not. It became kind of a big deal when he was hosting Saturday Night Live and a couple women in the cast refused to be in the episode.

Of course, it’s the same old dumb argument. The defense is that he’s playing a character, he’s not serious about all that stuff. Which is obviously true. You’re not supposed to take it 100% literally. But then, on the other hand, it’s not like you’re supposed to hate this character. You’re supposed to think he’s the fuckin man. So I can’t really blame those women for not wanting to work with the guy. If it really is only a character and nothing like the real guy then congratulations, you did a good job, people believe you really are a complete dickhead. It’s a testament to your acting.

The movie takes that persona and puts him in the middle of an action movie. I don’t know why, but in the ’80s the way to make a guy cool was to give him sunglasses and have him be into old music. Even Bruce in the first episode of MOONLIGHTING is supposed to be cool because he sings “Doo Wah Ditty.” This guy, Ford Fairlane, goes around with a pompadour and an asinine cowhide jacket (like something stolen from the TOY STORY part of the parade at Disneyland), he steals the microphone in a studio and does a cheesy rock song with copied Elvis moves, but everybody thinks he’s the coolest guy ever and women let him take advantage of them. I don’t really get it. He’s like Howard the Duck in human form or something.

As dumb as the character is, I actually think the weirdness of this movie is kind of funny. Harlin shoots it like a real Joel Silver action movie, complete with sunsets, explosions, stunts and elaborate sets. It honestly looks really good, and you don’t usually get that in a cheesy comedy. Waters writes it as a cartoonish exaggeration. The most normal one-liner is “So many assholes, so few bullets.”  In one scene Ford is chasing a creepy stalker (David Patrick Kelly from THE WARRIORS) and he shoots a disco ball so it’ll fall on his head. Then he announces “Clint Eastwood? I fucked him.”

What? I don’t really get it, but I sort of appreciate the audacity of a movie where the hero brags about fucking Clint Eastwood. I mean I gotta admit it, I laughed. And I can’t even be sure it if it was on some meta-ironical type level or if I was just laughing at the joke as intended, because I don’t really understand what the joke intended. But I laughed. (When he goes to a mansion we learn that he fucked Robin Leach too.)

How sexist is Ford Fairlane? Well, when he wakes up in bed with hot twins he says “Do the dishes!” They get mad and leave saying “We just wanted to be held, Ford!” So he blew it. Lauren Holly plays Ford’s shat-upon girl friday Jazz, who is a sympathetic character except for the inexplicable detail that she loves Ford. She tries to impress him but he humiliates her and spits food into her mouth (!?). We learn that they had a fling once but afterwards he made her clean the toilets and the bath tub.

Like Dick Tracy and other characters of the era, Ford has a streetwise orphan kid who follows him around and copies what he does, including wearing dumb looking Boz sunglasses, smoking cigarettes and cursing. I think this is Waters’ way of teasing people for saying Dice is a bad role model. (No shit.) What Ford has that Dick Tracy does not is a pet koala. For some reason every once in a while he’s hanging out with this koala that’s obviously a puppet. Then in one scene he comes home and the thugs have hung the koala by a noose from his ceiling fan. What’s great is this is played as a serious moment exactly like if he’d come home to find his maid or his little sister killed as a message to him. But it’s a fuckin koala puppet, you gotta laugh.

Good cast, too – Wayne Newton is the villain, Morris Day of The Time is a music producer (no Jerome, unfortunately), Gilbert Gottfried is a shock jock who gets electrocuted (get it, shock?), Robert Englund is a sadistic killer who I think is supposed to be dressed as the guy from Judas Priest, Tone Loc and Sheila E. have cameos. Okay, maybe not that great of a cast, but I kind of like seeing these people. Priscilla Presley has a small role too, you have to wonder what she thinks of this asshole who thinks he’s Elvis.

The biggest thing going against the movie is Dice/Ford’s lack of charm. At times it’s kind of funny how over-the-top his dickishness is, or his lack of humanity (in order to get information from him the bad guys don’t torture him, or the girl that’s with him, they torture his Jimi Hendrix guitar – and it works). But because he’s so fond of himself and he’s so corny with his look and everything it kind of rubs me the wrong way. I mean, I can root for an asshole like Billy Bob Thornton in BAD SANTA, but he knows he’s a piece of shit, and he doesn’t wear Boz glasses. Hmm, on the other hand, I can also root for Danny McBride asshole characters, and in EAST BOUND AND DOWN I’m pretty sure he does wear Boz glasses. So I don’t really know where the line is drawn. All I know is they should do a Ford Fairlane reboot starring Danny McBride.

I think there’s a category of weird studio mistakes of the ’80s and ’90s like HOWARD THE DUCK, HUDSON HAWK (also written by Waters) and LAST ACTION HERO (which also shares a writer). These are all movies that try to be kind of a parody of a studio movie and a real studio movie at the same time. They have big expensive action scenes but a purposely ridiculous world. Fairlane has a puppet koala, Last Action Hero has a cartoon cat. I don’t know about HOWARD THE DUCK but these other ones have some good qualities that get swept under the rug when they win all the Raspberry awards from some prick who never even saw the movie. So people want to stand up for them, they get kind of a cult following because they seem sort of misunderstood, even if they’re not great. You can admire what they were going for, at least.

FORD FAIRLANE is kind of in that category, a weird movie that doesn’t really work, but just the fact that they went through with making it makes me kind of root for it. Not the character – I kind of wish he died at the end. But I sort of liked the movie.

[ratings]