HUDSON HAWK

The Film: Hudson Hawk

The Guest: Video Night’s Michael Cook

For a long time, my family was under the impression that I liked certain things. When Affleck and Damon won that Academy Award®, my oldest brother said “Your boys won an Oscar®!”, fully convinced that they were my ‘boys’ – that I was a fan. And while both do fine work from time to time, I defy anyone to scroll through my personal history to find the moment in which my brother could interpret that those two celebrities were ‘my boys’.

Similarly, my parents were under the impression that I liked Bruce Willis – namely because I had, for a good stretch, watched The 5th Element. “There’s a new movie with that actor you like…um…Bruce Willis,” they’d say. I’d have to explain that I mostly really just liked that one. I mean, I watched the Die Hard movies like the rest of America, but that hardly makes me a fan of Bruce Willis. Had I been a fan, I would have actively pursued his releases. Had I been a fan, I would have seen Hudson Hawk as soon as it hit the theater or video store shelf.

Now, finally, after searching high and low for a suitable title for my guest (Video Night‘s Michael Cook) and I to watch, we decided on 1991’s Hudson Hawk.

Does Hudson Hawk belong on WDWJW?!? At first glance, not really. It’s an expensive international studio picture, a vanity project for rising mega-star Bruce Willis. It features the ever-relatable-to-early-90s-30-something-ladies Andie MacDowell. Classic actor James Coburn even shows up to do his thing. But then again, with the plot of a nice-guy cat burglar trying to go straight after just getting out of prison only to find himself roped back into burgling…and all he really wants is a nice cappuccino! Ok, still not that weird. But the choices made by the filmmakers – the writing and casting, the performances…GOSH! It all makes this one head-scratcher of a movie. From casting Sandra Bernhard and Richard E. Grant as the villains, to sub-villains with candy bar nicknames, to a runaway gurney, to singing songs instead of using a FLIPPIN’ STOPWATCH?!?! Nintendo is mentioned quite a bit, and there are rockets with suction cups on them! And then there’s that bonkers dolphin noise scene – and all this has what to do with Leonardo da Vinci somehow?

It SHOULDN’T be on WDWJW?!? but it is, because it refuses to be normal. Here, listen as we try and figure out the oddness that is Hudson Hawk.