Flick Picks, the Fourth

Today, I bring you to a movie that, for the most part, is hated by the public as being unfunny, weird, cliche-ridden, confusing, and just downright bad. This film won the Razzie awards for Worst Picture, Director, and Screenplay in 1992, and was nominated for Worst Actor, Supporting Actor, and Supporting Actress. Because of those, it was nominated for Worst Film of the Decade for the Razzies in 2000. The Razzies, by the way, for those unfamiliar with the term, come from The Golden Raspberry Awards, a ceremony started in 1982, to preface the Oscars as a sendup and mocking of the worst cinema of the year. This film almost killed Bruce Willis' career with it's terrible returns at the box office, terrible ad campaign, and atrocious press, mainly about production woes, cost and shooting overruns, scheduling problems leading to recasts, script rewrites, just about anything that could go wrong, did go wrong with this film. And I love it. The film is marketed as an action film, due to Bruce Willis starring in it, but in reality, is more like an action comedy spoof of the adventure genre, called Hudson Hawk. And yeah, SPOILERS!

First off, I truly believe that 90% of the people that hate this movie were expecting something else. Something more like Die Hard 2, released a year prior, or The Last Boy Scout, released just after Hawk, in the same year. More action, less quips, easy sight gags and explosions, because, let's face it, other than ABC's Television show Moonlighting, for which Willis became known just before he filmed the first Die Hard, he hadn't really shown us he could anything other than play a down on his luck palooka who happens to be really good at killing terrorist threats, both foreign and domestic. So when a film starring him came out, that had him on screen, that had more to do with Look Who's Talking, where he played the internal monologue of baby Mikey, and had elements of 1984's Romancing The Stone, the classic action comedy starring Micheal Douglas and Kathleen Turner, most of the movie going public wasn't sure what to make of it. When the film starting going out of it's way to be clever, with tons of in-jokes, running gags, and to top it off, musical numbers, everybody thought they had bought the wrong ticket, and decided the film was bad.

But, if I was to be honest, I just don't care about all that. I watch this film every time I can, it always makes me feel better, regardless of the mood I'm in, and while I notice the flaws, they are really far fewer than most people who watch this film would let on. First of all, I shall talk about the sets, as the film opens and closes in Italy, specifically a castle in the Roman countryside, where Leonardo Da Vinci lived and worked. The sets for the film are very well done, every building and statue showing culture, and are appropriately dated, giving a true sense of weight and existence to the proceedings. The places seem real, whether or not the action does.

The Music is good, too. While in most places being traditional action fare, it does the job it's written for underscoring moments of tension and levity alike, without bogging down the rest of the film. The two musicals numbers, one early on in the film, one near the end, are really well done when you consider the nature of the beast, in that here it was done as a completely tongue in cheek gesture, meant to be over the top. The Plot follows the same surreal bent, being that the villains have a very James Bond-esque scheme, but instead of a dapper, classy British spy, we get a confused, classy, cat burglar from Hoboken, New Jersey. Everything about this film screams, "please don't take me seriously! I'm just here for laughs!"

With that in mind, this film is actually rather dialogue driven, mostly being witty banter between Bruce Willis and whoever else happens to be onscreen with him at the time, usually Danny Aiello. All of the performances here are good, in that they are what was called for by the script, at that was to overact like hell. Everybody in the film has to take their performance to at least a 9, with a few standout 11s among the main cast.

Bruce Willis here is basically asked to turn John Maclaine into a joke by playing Eddie "Hudson Hawk" Hawkins the "world's greatest cat burglar". And he does. Here he plays counter to the straight-laced hero type he'd been known for, basically being the audience in some instances by asking just what was going on. He comes of as slick, charming and lucky enough to root for when the chips are down. His character is out dated on purpose, using low tech means like skateboards and pocket fishermen to fool the latest security systems, and singing show tunes to time the heists.

His partner, Tommy Five-Tone, is played very well by Danny Aiello. He is the perfect partner, playing off Bruce Willis well. The buddy vibe is really well done, the glib banter between them is excellent. This character is kind of an in-joke, kind of a homage, his light hearted playfulness being in stark contrast to darker, grittier character he played in The Godfather Part II, and Once Upon a Time in America.

The female lead in this film is played very well by Andie Macdowell. While she was the third choice, her inclusion in this film is wonderful, and more appropriate. The first two (Isabella Rosselini, and Maruschka Detmers), while great actresses in their own right( I'm assuming on Detmers part, as I haven't actually seen anything she's in), would have been better for spoofs of a more conventional sort, more akin to Hitchcock as opposed to Bond. Macdowell, here, was perfect, playing a character joke to her roles in sex, lies and videotape, and St. Elmo's Fire, by playing a flirty, Vatican spy... as in an undercover nun. Funny, funny, funny.

James Coburn is in this film as a lead agent in the CIA, George Kaplan. Those who immediately remembered that George Kaplan was the name of the fake agent from the Hitchcock movie, North by Northwest, congratulations, you noticed another of the film's in jokes, take a shot. (I'll turn this thing into a drinking game if it kills me.) Here he is, like everyone else, over the top, cheesy, and oh so vaguely EBIL. Like most of the film's villains, his evil is more of a greedy, money-grubbing type, who last words bemoan not his family, missed opportunities, or the like, but the fact that he'll never receive his pension.

Richard E. Grant and Sandra Bernhard play the main villains of the piece, Darwin and Minerva Mayflower. Rich, entitled business owners who only hunger for one thing: world domination. And they set about doing through economics, and a plan to flood the world market with gold made by a machine invented by, wait for it, Leonardo Da Vinci. They are a high point of the movie, as their performances come off as some of the most over the top bad guys in recent years. Which is really something, as Sandra Bernhard went on to play side character in Roseanne and Hercules, and Richard E. Grant is still mostly known for playing hero types on his native British television. Their butler, Alfred, is played decently enough by another British TV star, Donald Burton. Not much to say about him, as he doesn't have that much screen time, but it is a decent henchman for a film like this, the spoof quality coming out in his ability to fight with knives hidden in devices in his sleeves.

The other CIA agents round out the rest of cast that has anything more than a cameo, and while a few of their jokes fall flat, they still are good henchman. Their are four of them named Snickers, Almond Joy, Kit Kat, and Butterfinger. Each in turn are decent enough, the main comic relief of the group being Butterfinger. Snickers is played by Don Harvey, whose only claim to fame is being a side character in just about every war film made in his lifetime. Almond Joy, in turn, is played by Louise Toussaint, who after playing a side part opposite Annie Potts in Dangerous Minds in 1995, made a name for herself in TV as well, most notably Saving Grace and Friday Night Lights. Kit Kat, well, he's played by the ever gimmicky David Caruso, here given a personality trait in that he is mute, and he mimicks other people and things through out the film. Caruso, as most people should know, has become relevant again due to his being part of CSI franchise of shows, in this case, CSI: Miami. Butterfinger is played by perennial tough guy Andrew Bryniarski, who was known at the time for bit parts in TV and films, but now is known for being Leatherface in the recent Texas Chainsaw Massacre reboot and sequels. Also, on a much cooler, geekier note, he played Lobo in The Lobo Paramilitary Christmas Special. Look it up, Hilarious stuff.

Two other bits of note here, is a cameo by Frank Stallone as part of the Mario Brothers(hey, Nintendo was relevant, and topical!), a mafia family that is part of the Mayflower's plot, and a Narrator, who lends voiceover to the opening and closing moments of the film, played by William Conrad, a hardworking actor whose career spans decades, but the only reason I know him is because I watched a cop show he starred in during the 90s, Jake and the Fatman.

Now as I said before, this film is a spoof of sorts. The special effects for some of the explosions are obviously dummies, not even well hidden ones, the bad guys have tons of device straight out of Bond movie written by a ten year old, more spies and agents then you can shake a martini at, transitional shots that seem almost cartoony in their setup, and running gags in the form the main character not knowing what Nintendo is, and wanting a cappuccino. And all of it is on purpose, so do yourself a favor. Go grab this film. It been out on DVD for a while now, so you should be able to rent it, or pick it up cheap. If you go knowing it's a spoof of adventure films, rather than an out-n-out action flick, you should be happily surprised by how much you enjoy it.