Review of Hudson Hawk (1991) by Kai82 — 11 Sep 2021

This movie got teared apart by critics, received 3 golden raspberries and is now mostly forgotten. I think this is best seen as an entertaining B movie that takes itself not serious while being no masterpiece either.

I don't remember the movie being even showed in TV on smaller stations in recent years. It was plagued by development hell but ultimately is quite entertaining (If you like B movies or apply B movie standards).

The movie follows Eddie Hawkins called Hudson Hawk who is a master safe cracker, thief and cat burglar. He is freshly out of the prison when he is forced by various group to do a heist for them. However this is even bigger than he could imagine and leads back to the times of Leonardo da Vinci.

I stop here with this set up. The story and characters have a B movie charm that won me over. I warn here that this is not for everyone and I see what critiques and others dislike. If you expect this to be an A movie or blockbuster than this is a disappointment.

However I will question if you made the right assumptions for this movie. Back to the movie: The story works for me well in B movie style so lets continue with the characters. We have Bruce Willis as Eddie Hawkins aka Hudson Hawk.

I think he is a charming character and works well. Danny Aiello plays Tommy Messina aka Five Tone who is Eddies partner in crime. A good performance too. The Mayflowers played by Richard E. Grant ans Sandra Bernhard are interesting but a bit to unbelievable for my taste.

Andie Mac Dowell as Anna Baragli works well and delivers. We got a solid performance by B movie standards and I freely admit the weakness in the scripts and dialogues. I know that I repeat the word “B movie” a lot but this is the quintessence for me and think I said all there is to say so far.

Overall this is both. An entertaining movie and a catastrophe in one but it depends on your preferences. As prove that it is not that bad I will make the argument that it never appears on that many worst movies on all time lists and has a small fan base.