Hudson Hawk (1991)

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Bruce Willis stars in this ill-conceived action comedy that’s neither exciting nor funny. Willis plays a master thief who’s hired to steal priceless artifacts created by Leonardo Da Vinci, so some bad guys can use Da Vinci’s secret technology to turn lead into gold. Isn’t that some shit? Along the way, he’s aided by his buddy Danny Aiello, and kinda falls for a vatican art specialist played by Andie MacDowell.

I always love to see Andie MacDowell and Danny Aiello in a movie, and Bruce Willis is certainly capable of good work. But Hudson Hawk suffers from a bloated, heinously over-plotted screenplay that has no anchor in reality whatsoever. There’s no way for the audience to ever engage with the material, because everything is void of dramatic weight or consequence. Every single character tries so hard to be hilarious, and every scene is so mad-cap in execution, you become worn out just trying to keep up with the movie. The film features a litany of villains (including James Coburn, Richard E. Grant, and Sandra Bernhard), when it really should have focused on just one or two heavies. And maybe if not every character was so wacky, the wacky ones would have worked more.

Danny Aiello has a few charming moments in the film, and maybe one or two of the movie’s myriad jokes are kinda funny, but Hudson Hawk is otherwise, a big, boring turkey of a movie. Directed by Michael Lehmann (Heathers).