Nighthawks (1981) Universal/Action-Thriller RT: 99 minutes Rated R (language, strong violence, drugs) Director: Bruce Malmuth Screenplay: David Shaber Music: Keith Emerson Cinematography: James A. Contner Release date: April 10, 1981 (US) Cast: Sylvester Stallone, Billy Dee Williams, Lindsay Wagner, Rutger Hauer, Persis Khambatta, Nigel Davenport, Joe Spinell, Hilary Thompson. Catherine Mary Stewart. Box Office: $14.9M (US)
Rating: *** ½
It may be hard to believe but Sylvester Stallone is actually a pretty good actor. In Nighthawks, he plays a role that requires much more than his usual grunting, glowering and mumbling. In fact, I’d have to say that Nighthawks is one of the most overlooked movies of the 80s. It actually has a reasonably intelligent plot that involves something other than a one-man army cop mowing down dozens of bad guys single-handedly.
Stallone plays Deke DaSilva, a New York City street cop who works undercover catching muggers and drug-dealers with his partner/friend Matthew Fox (Williams, The Empire Strikes Back). They get transferred to a special unit acting in conjunction with the ATAC (Anti-Terrorist Action Command) squad. It operates under the leadership of Interpol agent Peter Hartman (Davenport, Chariots of Fire). Their objective is to capture an international terrorist called Wulfgar (Hauer, Wanted Dead or Alive) who’s responsible for the bombing of a London department store at the beginning of the movie. After his face becomes known to international law enforcement, he gets plastic surgery in Paris and goes to New York with a new face. Since Interpol has no idea what he looks like now, they recruit and train cops to get inside the terrorist’s head as this will better enable them to capture the brutal psychopath who ultimately takes a group of United Nations representatives hostage on the Roosevelt Island tram car along with his associate Shakka (Khambatta, Star Trek: The Motion Picture).
Nighthawks doesn’t move at a breakneck speed like countless other action flicks of the time. It takes the time to give the viewer some insight into the main characters. We know that DaSilva has some personal problems with his ex-wife Irene (Wagner, The Bionic Woman). We also know that he and Fox served in Vietnam and made a real name for themselves on the force, enough to be considered the most qualified candidates for their new assignment. It also takes the time to show our heroes sitting through countless hours of endless briefings concerning the psychology of Wulfgar and how he operates. We also get to know Wulfgar as a ruthless killer who takes no chances when it comes to his freedom. He murders an associate who leads the British police to his location in London. This associate just happened to be carrying a passport that shows what the terrorist looks like. Because of this, his identity is blown and nobody wants to hire him. Law enforcement everywhere knows what he looks like.
This is the first movie that brought Hauer to the attention of American moviegoers. He’s of Dutch descent and had only appeared in foreign films- e.g. Soldier of Orange- prior to Nighthawks. Hauer is the absolute personification of cold evil here. He’s equally capable of killing a woman he’s staying with as he is blowing up office buildings on Wall Street. Yet there seems to be an element of decency with him as he allows DaSilva to take an infant away from the tram car situation. The late Khambatta is even colder; she has no qualms about who she kills or why.
Nighthawks works primarily because it doesn’t subscribe to the low mentality that would define most of the other action films of the 80s. I’m not saying that I hate those movies. On the contrary, I enjoy a good, violent action flick. However, Nighthawks is more than that. It actually offers its audience a good, intelligent, suspenseful action-thriller. True, it slows down a bit during the briefing scenes but since they’re crucial to the plot of the movie, I’m willing to overlook it. It has some bravura action scenes as DaSilva and Fox take down muggers, drug dealers and other baddies. When we first meet DaSilva, he’s working undercover to catch a gang of muggers who prey on old ladies late at night. He’s dressed as an old lady and boy does he ever surprise the scumbags that try to take his purse.
The New York City depicted in Nighthawks is the one that existed before Giuliani cleaned it up. The neighborhoods DaSilva and Fox have to go into are dangerous, trash-strewn cesspools. This is when NYC was a real toilet and the bad guys merely turds that floated on the surface. In this respect, Nighthawks can be viewed as a historical record.
Nighthawks is a perfectly structured action-thriller that provides as much excitement as it does tension. There’s a great chase scene where DaSilva, after spotting Wulfgar in a discotheque, chases him right into the subway system. After his partner is severely injured, DaSilva’s reaction is dead-on perfect as he yells “You’re f***ing dead, you mother f***er, you’re f***ing dead!” In my opinion, that’s one of the best scenes in the movie.
The performances are all very good from Stallone’s intelligent, more-than-capable cop to Hauer’s cold-blooded terrorist. Williams is also very good as the partner; I just wish he had been given more to do. I liked that the movie saw fit to include scenes in London and Paris before the main action in New York. Director Bruce Malmuth (Hard to Kill) has fashioned one of the better action movies of the 80s, one that seems to have been forgotten in the wake of all the Rambo and Terminator movies that followed. I recommend that you check this movie out; it will give you an idea of how an action movie should be structured.
