Nighthawks

Nighthawks (1981)

Runtime: 99 minutes

Directed by: Bruce Malmuth

Starring: Sly Stallone, Billy Dee Williams, Rutger Hauer, Persis Khambatta, Nigel Davenport

From: Universal

One instance where a score is bumped up due to a movie's ending.

In the past I have seen this thriller; however, that was ages ago & randomly it was decided the previous night to give the film a revisit. An important aspect to make clear right away: it was not the smoothest of productions. Even before filming (where its original director was replaced by Bruce Malmuth) and quite a bit was cut out to make a 99 minute picture instead of something apparently almost 2 1/2 hours long, the original idea of the story was to be The French Connection III where Popeye Doyle would team up with someone-allegedly played by Richard Pryor!-but Gene Hackman did not want to make another one of those so it was reworked into what we got here.

Two loose cannon cops in NYC are assigned to an international anti-terror squad after a heinous European serial bomber flees to The Big Apple. A big asset for Nighthawks is that this bomber was played by Rutger Hauer in his American movie debut. Even amongst a cast of Sly Stallone, Billy Dee Williams, Nigel Davenport, Joe Spinell for a few minutes and Persis Khambatta, he was the highlight. There's also Lindsay Wagner, who I am sure was fine in her role... unfortunately she had to be the biggest victim of the movie's cuts-she's only in a few scenes and vanishes for a very long stretch.

It is still a good movie as is due to the conflict between the heroes & villains and Sly's slavish devotion to “acting like a cop” being in stark contrast to this squad... where you have to be just as merciless as the terrorists. There is a great extended scene of Sly and Billy Dee in a discotheque and the long chase which happens after they spot Hauer as a patron. While it's patently obvious as times that entire scenes are missing, For me at least, assets which helped were views of “The crappy New York City of Old” and a score by Keith Emerson which does sound like something you'd expect from a 70's prog rocker yet it did work in this context.

Without giving any spoilers, the final few minutes are pretty great and it was enough for me to bump up my rating a bit. As this original cut of the movie is most likely long ago rotted away in some landfill, I'll instead be fine with having this version of Nighthawks around as it was nice to see again after all these years.