I've read some of the good reviews of Hudson Hawk, and if those folks (many here on IMDb) found enjoyment out of it, that's your prerogative. But you can call it a surrealistic/absurdist/satirical masterpiece all you want; the question has to come down for every single person watching Hudson Hawk: is this FUNNY? Perhaps in those large capital letters you may think so. I didn't find any of this BS funny. Hudson Hawk isn't surreal, and it wouldn't know surreal if it came and bit it in the dick with a toothbrush attached to a giraffe on fire. It's a movie made by clever people (no, really, they are, the guys made Heathers right before this, Michael Lehmann and Daniel Waters) that shreds genuine cleverness for self-satisfied smugness. This film is so satisfied with itself, but it never lets the audience see something just remotely close to reality so that the absurdity can find a foothold.
I knew of this movie just by reputation - it was a bomb so notorious in its time it almost (just almost) made the previous year's Bonfire of the Vanities (also, coincidentally, with Bruce Willis) not seem so bad. It's a movie that cost upwards of 45 million dollars - at a time when that sort of thing wasn't done - and the movie is and isn't there at the same time. Sure, you have a super-star like Bruce Willis (and other names like Danny Aiello and Andie McDowell and, uh, Richard E Grant and Sandra Bernhard and James Coburn, people who may not have cost much but they're there I guess). Sure, you have locations in New York city and Rome, so there's a lot of action and fancy locations. And sure, there's... what else is there?
I'm sure the actors were game for this, but the script is one of the biggest piles of dog crap I have ever encountered in all of my years of watching movies. Every other line has to be a joke, or some witty/smugly clever line. But it's not, it's stupid, it's lines that constantly, consistently, take the audience out of the movie (or it did for me). It's one thing to have a caper involving some sacred object from centuries past that multiple parties are after - right now I'm sure you can think of a number of movies right off the top of your head (Notorious and an Indiana Jones movie were ones for me). But here, it's completely artificial.
It's not that artificial can always be a death knell; filmmakers for decades have used a sort of heightened, stylized form of dialog for characters to be kind of cool and interesting - watch the Ocean's 11 movies and you see it done with actual style and sincerity, since a) it's actually funny lines being delivered, and b) the filmmakers know to give a few minutes to let the characters be sort of real people. Here, from right after a prologue showing the DaVinci whatever thing, when Hudson Hawk is leaving prison onward, it's an onslaught of snappy dialog that doesn't snap, and things like, oh, musical numbers (?!) set as Willis and Aiello pull off a cat burglary/heist and it's so, so bad.
This comes down to just being cartoonish; I almost wish it had been a cartoon, even an episode of f***ing Chip N Dale Rescue Rangers, whatever, and at least there could be some context for some of the things that happens with the supporting characters. Not even Andie McDowell, who appears at first to be possibly the straight person to react to all of these who-cares-about-a-top-lets-go-to-outer-space actors, can resist making dolphin noises when under some hypnosis/paralyzing drug from the bad guys. And any thought of Willis showing just some restraint is thrown out the window (apparently Willis got in clashes with the director and kept putting in his ideas, and incidentally has a 'co-story' credit, goodness).
I'd tell you more about the story, but who cares, really? This is a movie where the writers and director think they've got a smash comedy on their hands - jokes about Nintendo and Cappuccino drinks abound, for example, and about stuff like the Vatican but it's so safe, even as it's an R-rated movie - but no arbiter of good taste seemed to be on the set while every actor made themselves into jerks. Sometimes for things to be funny, you have to play it STRAIGHT, to not make it like you're in on the joke, and that is the central problem with this movie.
There's actually one almost decent sequence, where Willis has to steal a sacred notebook from a Roman museum, and here there is very little dialog (there's no show-tune, thank god), and how Hawk goes about stealing this item and getting away shows a few good ideas that the filmmakers had. But, on the whole, I just felt bad for a number of people here (Aiello especially, and Grant as well after seeing him be hysterical in Withnail & I). For Willis... this seems about right for his career at the time. I just didn't find it funny, and even then it would be a mess.
I knew of this movie just by reputation - it was a bomb so notorious in its time it almost (just almost) made the previous year's Bonfire of the Vanities (also, coincidentally, with Bruce Willis) not seem so bad. It's a movie that cost upwards of 45 million dollars - at a time when that sort of thing wasn't done - and the movie is and isn't there at the same time. Sure, you have a super-star like Bruce Willis (and other names like Danny Aiello and Andie McDowell and, uh, Richard E Grant and Sandra Bernhard and James Coburn, people who may not have cost much but they're there I guess). Sure, you have locations in New York city and Rome, so there's a lot of action and fancy locations. And sure, there's... what else is there?
I'm sure the actors were game for this, but the script is one of the biggest piles of dog crap I have ever encountered in all of my years of watching movies. Every other line has to be a joke, or some witty/smugly clever line. But it's not, it's stupid, it's lines that constantly, consistently, take the audience out of the movie (or it did for me). It's one thing to have a caper involving some sacred object from centuries past that multiple parties are after - right now I'm sure you can think of a number of movies right off the top of your head (Notorious and an Indiana Jones movie were ones for me). But here, it's completely artificial.
It's not that artificial can always be a death knell; filmmakers for decades have used a sort of heightened, stylized form of dialog for characters to be kind of cool and interesting - watch the Ocean's 11 movies and you see it done with actual style and sincerity, since a) it's actually funny lines being delivered, and b) the filmmakers know to give a few minutes to let the characters be sort of real people. Here, from right after a prologue showing the DaVinci whatever thing, when Hudson Hawk is leaving prison onward, it's an onslaught of snappy dialog that doesn't snap, and things like, oh, musical numbers (?!) set as Willis and Aiello pull off a cat burglary/heist and it's so, so bad.
This comes down to just being cartoonish; I almost wish it had been a cartoon, even an episode of f***ing Chip N Dale Rescue Rangers, whatever, and at least there could be some context for some of the things that happens with the supporting characters. Not even Andie McDowell, who appears at first to be possibly the straight person to react to all of these who-cares-about-a-top-lets-go-to-outer-space actors, can resist making dolphin noises when under some hypnosis/paralyzing drug from the bad guys. And any thought of Willis showing just some restraint is thrown out the window (apparently Willis got in clashes with the director and kept putting in his ideas, and incidentally has a 'co-story' credit, goodness).
I'd tell you more about the story, but who cares, really? This is a movie where the writers and director think they've got a smash comedy on their hands - jokes about Nintendo and Cappuccino drinks abound, for example, and about stuff like the Vatican but it's so safe, even as it's an R-rated movie - but no arbiter of good taste seemed to be on the set while every actor made themselves into jerks. Sometimes for things to be funny, you have to play it STRAIGHT, to not make it like you're in on the joke, and that is the central problem with this movie.
There's actually one almost decent sequence, where Willis has to steal a sacred notebook from a Roman museum, and here there is very little dialog (there's no show-tune, thank god), and how Hawk goes about stealing this item and getting away shows a few good ideas that the filmmakers had. But, on the whole, I just felt bad for a number of people here (Aiello especially, and Grant as well after seeing him be hysterical in Withnail & I). For Willis... this seems about right for his career at the time. I just didn't find it funny, and even then it would be a mess.