Plot
Eddie “Hudson Hawk” Hawkins has just gotten out of prison after 10 years, and is automatically pressured into stealing a priceless statue for some eccentric billionaires, the Mayflowers. He discovers that they are after three pieces of a puzzle made by Leonardo DaVinci that will turn lead into Gold.
With his best friend Tommy, and the secretive Anna – he is sent to Rome to assist in stealing the last two pieces.
Direction
Directed by Michael Lehmann, who had already cemented himself in Hollywood off the back of Heathers (something I will have to add to my ‘to watch again and review list’.
It’s… okay. There really isn’t anything that amazing here, some fun use of explosions etc, but other than that I found it to be just okay.
Cast/Characters
Bruce Willis plays Eddie. While he gives it his all, and has done sooooo much better in other comedies, there are some ‘narrative issues’ that stopped me from loving him here.
Danny Aiello (RIP) plays Tommy. He too has been solid in other things (Two Days in the Valley), and is just sound here.
Andie McDowell – who generally has displayed a ‘lack of talent’ at times… is actually quite funny in a few scenes – but still struggles at others.
Richard E Grant and Sandra Bernhard are over the top as the villains the Mayflowers.
James Coburn is solid as a secondary antagonist who is working for the Mayflowers.
Breakdown
Having recently reviewed an amazing Bruce Willis comedy in Death Becomes Her, I was hoping for another example of that… but unfortunately it is far from the heights of that film.
A muddling narrative, at times you feel like it is written for kids – but with some extremely course language throughout, it is far from being ‘for kids’, but with a antagonists plan that comes right out of a cartoon, you would expect it to be written for less mature audiences.
There is also some moments where there is some extreme violence – with the main henchman of the baddies using the extremely sharp blades that pop out of his sleeves.
There are also more double crosses that the film that it really knows what to do with, almost as if the writers were out of ideas throughout the entire film. These are then almost forgotten by the characters, as they are the audience.
Another problem is there is not enough self awareness in a film that has campy fight sequences such as the one between (a wasted) James Coburn and Bruce Willis (in which the latter cant stop his body swaying back and forth for some reason, other than… silly?)
There is also an over the top survival of one character who manages to survive a car explosion in the most inane way possible, but having sat through over 90 minutes of ridiculousness, this doesn’t seem at all far fetched.
Overall
Had this taken itself a little less seriously, and was slightly more self aware – with a little less violence and way less swearing this could have been a better film, but because of the identity struggles is why it is so lowly scored.
Shame,
2/5
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