Nighthawks (film)
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Nighthawks is a 1981 action thriller movie starring Sylvester Stallone, Billy Dee Williams, Lindsay Wagner, Persis Khambatta, Nigel Davenport and Rutger Hauer. It was directed by Bruce Malmuth.
| Nighthawks | |
|---|---|
 Film poster |
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| Directed by | Bruce Malmuth Gary Nelson |
| Produced by | Herb Nanas Martin Poll |
| Written by | Paul Sylbert David Shaber |
| Starring | Sylvester Stallone Billy Dee Williams Lindsay Wagner Persis Khambatta Nigel Davenport Rutger Hauer |
| Music by | Keith Emerson John Carcavas |
| Editing by | Stanford C. Allen Christopher Holmes Darren T. Holmes Virginia Katz |
| Distributed by | MCA/Universal Home Video |
| Release date(s) | Apr 4, 1981 |
| Running time | 99 min. |
| Language | English |
| Budget | 1,000,000 |
| IMDb profile | |
Contents |
[edit] Storyline
The story revolves around two New York detectives, Det. Sgt. Deke DaSilva (Sylvester Stallone) and Det. Sgt. Matthew Fox (Billy Dee Williams) who work the night shift. In the prologue, a man with a knife tries to mug a woman, who turns out to be DaSilva in a blonde wig. Later, DaSilva tries to talk things over with his ex-wife Irene (Lindsay Wagner).
In London, terrorist Reinhardt Heymar Wulfgar (Rutger Hauer) blows up a department store, to the anger of his employer who withdraws his funding. Wulfgar kills his employer, and the policemen who try to arrest him. He then flees to Paris. Where he meets his associate Shakka in a Church where he receives some money. He then has Plastic Surgery to change his appearance to make himself look "beautiful" with blonde hair and blue eyes, after which Wulfgar murders the plastic surgeon. He then flees to New York.
British Counter-terrorist specialist Peter Hartman (Nigel Davenport) briefs DaSilva and Fox and a specially selected team of New York cops on Wulfgar and his associate, Shakka Holland (Persis Khambatta), who he says is a spoiled brat. DaSilva tells Hartman he is unimpressed; Wulfgar is just like every other punk he and his colleagues have to deal with.
Wulfgar murders a woman he meets in a nightclub when she discovers his gun. He receives new funding and carries out his first bombing on American soil. Wulfgar is now hiding and living down in the basement in a little grocery store and butcher shop. Knowing that Wulfgar likes the nightlife, DaSilva and Fox track Wulfgar down to a nightclub and chase him down the subway. Fox is badly injured and Wulfgar escapes. While protecting an important U.N. dinner that might be a potential terrorist target, DaSilva reconciles with Hartman, but Hartman lets his guard down and is shot by Shakka.
Wulfgar's next act is to hijack the Roosevelt Island Tram carrying U.N. employees. When his demands are not met he executes a woman while DaSilva is watching from a hovering police helicopter. Wulfgar decides to let a baby onboard go and demands that DaSilva personally boards the tramway to rescue it. DaSilva is winched up to the aerial tram and confronts Wulfgar face-to-face. DaSilva demands to know why Wulfgar killed the woman. “I wanted to.” the sadist replies. DaSilva and the baby are lowered back down to a waiting barge.
The police agree to Wulfgar's demands for a bus to escort him to safety. Wulfgar and Shakka hide among the crowd of hostages from the tram. DaSilva waits until they try to board before making his move. He plays back a recording of Hartman's lecture in which the terrorist expert denounces Shakka. In a rage, Shakka breaks from the hostages and is gunned down by police snipers. Wulfgar tries to escape alone in the bus but ends up in the Hudson River.
A search of the wreckage shows no sign of Wulfgar. The terrorist makes his way to Irene's house. He finds her washing dishes and sneaks up behind her brandishing a knife. DaSilva turns around, wearing his ex-wife's housecoat and a blonde wig, brandishing a gun. With nowhere to go, Wulfgar lunges at DaSilva who empties his revolver into the terrorist, blowing him into the street.
[edit] Production stories
The original director was Gary Nelson, who had directed the successful movies Freaky Friday (1976) and The Black Hole, but he left the project early into production and was not credited. His replacement, Bruce Malmuth, had only one previous film to his credit, a segment of the 1975 portmanteau comedy Foreplay. Malmuth was unable to make his first day of shooting, so Stallone stepped in to shoot the scene, the chase down the subway. Stallone had to get the approval of the Directors Guild of America (DGA), which has strict rules on actors directing their own movies, for this one day of filming.
The film marked the American debut of Dutch actor Rutger Hauer. According to a recent interview in Premiere, Hauer was told before filming that Stallone ran up building stairwells for exercise. However, during the subway chase, Hauer continually outran the American star, who is known for his competitive streak (see also Victory). Stallone also gave the producers headaches by insisting on doing his own stunts. According to actor Nigel Davenport in an interview for the BBC's Wogan show, Stallone performed the scene where he was winched up to the tram without a double. The film's stunt coordinator was the legendary Dar Robinson. Stallone confirms this in a Q&A session on Ain't-It-Cool-News' website:
Hanging from the cable car was probably one of the more dangerous stunts I was asked to perform because it was untested and I was asked to hold a folding Gerber knife in my left hand so if the cable were to snap, and I survived the 230 foot fall into the East River with its ice cold 8 mile an hour current, I could cut myself free from the harness because the cable when stretched out weighed more than 300 lbs. I tell you this because it's so stupid to believe that I would survive hitting the water so to go beyond that is absurd.
In the same Q&A session, he said that Nighthawks "was even a better film before the studio lost faith in it and cut it to pieces. What was in the missing scenes was extraordinary acting by Rutger Hauer, Lindsey Wagner, and the finale was a blood fest that rivaled the finale of Taxi Driver. But it was a blood fest with a purpose."
[edit] Filming date
January 1980 - March 1980
[edit] Comments
Despite receiving good reviews, including one from Variety, Nighthawks was not a commercial success. This marked Stallone's third non-Rocky film in a row to underachieve at the box office. After another flop - Victory - Stallone returned to Rocky III and then the smash-hit First Blood, which consolidated his status as an action-movie he-man, much like his contemporary Arnold Schwarzenegger. In Nighthawks, Stallone - sporting an atypical beard and at one point wearing eye-glasses - plays down the action in favor of plot and character development. Nearly 25 years after its release, elements of the film now appear dated, mainly due to its soundtrack, including a score by Keith Emerson along with several tracks by ' 70's rockers Foghat and The Rossington-Collins Band. Despite the novelty of casting an Italian-American actor with an African-American actor, Billy Dee Williams effectively disappears from the movie halfway through. Lindsay Wagner's role is similarly abridged, though it appears some of her scenes with Stallone ended up on the cutting room floor.
The film still manages to deliver some exciting and standout sequences, notably the final confrontation between DaSilva and Wulfgar. Though not the first Hollywood film to deal with terrorism in the United States (it was predated by Black Sunday in 1977) the relationship between the hero and the villain is similar to that of John McClane and Hans Gruber in the 1988 film Die Hard. Additionally, Wulfgar's methods appear to inspired by real-life terrorist, Carlos the Jackal.
[edit] DVD versions
The widescreen DVD edition from Universal Pictures replaces two songs played during the disco shoot-out. The first song is "Brown Sugar" by the Rolling Stones and the second one is "I'm A Man" by Keith Emerson. Earlier VHS releases from Universal Home Video and some TV versions, also featured the altered songs. The fullscreen DVD release by GoodTimes Entertainment contains the restored songs.
[edit] External link
