Nighthawks (1981)
DIRECTOR: Bruce Malmuth
CAST: Sylvester Stallone, Billy Dee Williams, Rutger Hauer, Nigel Davenport, Lindsay Wagner, Persis Khambatta
REVIEW:
Nighthawks aims to be an edgy urban crime thriller combining the gritty, street-level action of Baretta or The French Connection with the international intrigue of The Day of the Jackal (in fact, at one point it was originally planned as The French Connection III), but is actually a rather half-baked and shallowly-plotted cops and killers yarn that squanders the underdeveloped potential of its premise.
We set out on two parallel tracks that will eventually intersect on a collision course. Aggressive NYPD detective Deke DaSilva (Sylvester Stallone) and his partner Matthew Fox (Billy Dee Williams) pursue run-of-the-mill street level thugs on the nighttime streets of New York City, but they’re about to have a bigger problem. In Europe, an urbane German-born international terrorist who calls himself Wulfgar (Rutger Hauer) finds the ground shrinking beneath his feet, with Interpol onto his face and passport and his indiscriminate bombings alienating him from some of his own terrorist comrades. So, a visit to a plastic surgeon later, he resurfaces in New York planning to stage a brazen terrorist attack for media attention. DaSilva and Fox are recruited onto an anti-terrorism task force by Wulfgar’s longtime pursuer, the hard-nosed Hartman (Nigel Davenport), but needless to say, the hunters risk becoming the hunted.
The premise of Nighthawks could have had some potential, but it’s half-baked and shallow at every turn. DaSilva is a cliched ”loose cannon” hard-driving street cop alienated from his ex-wife (Lindsay Wagner) and half his colleagues, with only the trusty Fox by his side. Likewise, Wulfgar looks cool, but his personality is a blank slate apart from tastes for a fancy wardrobe, disco nightclubs, and women (is Wulfgar a ”true believer”, or is the movie trying to call him out as a hedonistic attention-seeking charlatan? The half-baked characterizations make it hard to tell). There’s a couple interesting action sequences; the cold open features Sylvester Stallone, in disguise as a woman to catch some muggers, taking down a few punks—-while in drag, no less—-and halfway through there’s a well-filmed and lengthy sequence that goes from a staredown in a nightclub where DaSilva and Wulfgar lock eyes for the first time, to a chase through the streets and onto the subway. Alas, the movie can’t come up with a strong finish. Wulfgar’s climactic plan is rather underwhelming (exactly how did he expect to get away with this?), and the epilogue devolves even further and turns him into a cliched mad slasher. For all Nigel Davenport’s portentous monologuing about ”advanced anti-terrorism techniques”, we never see DaSilva and Fox using any particular skills they didn’t already have. And if the men are underdeveloped, the women in the cast fare even worse; word has it that much of the screentime of Lindsay Wagner and Persis Khambatta (as Wulfgar’s sidekick Shakka) ended up on the cutting room floor. The movie was plagued by production problems; originally it was planned as The French Connection III before being scrapped and reworked into Nighthawks. While Bruce Malmuth remains officially credited as director, Lindsay Wagner has since claimed that Stallone took over the film due to production problems and essentially ghost-directed it himself. The film was reportedly heavily re-edited in post-production amid continual meddling from both Stallone and the studio (Rutger Hauer later referred to the movie as a missed opportunity).
The actors do the best they can with their half-baked material. Sylvester Stallone, not typically thought of in connection with strong performances, is credible as DaSilva, with Billy Dee Williams providing solid support as his trusty partner/sidekick. Dutch actor Rutger Hauer, in his first US role, cuts a striking figure, but his underdeveloped personality is a black hole besides acting menacingly urbane. Nigel Davenport gets a to do a lot of portentous monologuing about “advanced anti-terrorism techniques” and bark lines like “your only weapon against violence is greater violence”. The two female roles, Lindsay Wagner and Persis Khambatta, don’t get much to do.
Among gritty 1970s urban crime thrillers, Nighthawks is moderately diverting but hasn’t aged particularly well and feels undercooked and like it doesn’t know how to make something substantial out of the premise it sets up. The final product feels like a half-baked amalgamation of The French Connection and The Day of the Jackal, but pales in comparison to either of them.
* * 1/2