Review: Nighthawks

International terrorist Wulfgar (Rutger Hauer) sets about making a name for himself and his organisation wreaking havoc in New York City. In response, a counter-terrorist unit headed by Interpol’s Hartman (Nigel Davenport) looks to recruit street-wise NYC cops like Deke DaSilva (Sly Stallone) and Matthew Fox (Billy Dee Williams) and train them in counter-terrorism. Lindsay Wagner plays Deke’s main squeeze, Persis Khambatta plays one of Wulfgar’s most devoted cohorts.

 

The kind of solid, enjoyable film that you get the sense could’ve been even better if not for its leading man. Even if you don’t pay much to the story co-star Rutger Hauer tells in his autobiography about the shooting of this 1981 terrorist thriller, watching the film you can’t help but feel Sly Stallone is keeping it from being even better than it is. And believe me, it’s pretty damn good and quite tense and exciting at times. I get that Stallone’s character has gone through marital issues, but the actor spends the entire film looking sullen and completely disinterested in being in the film. It’s completely unhelpful to the film itself. The thing is though, the entire film seems geared towards propping up his character.

 

And this is where the film’s notorious production problems and Hauer’s complaints come in as far as I’m concerned. It was a troubled production, with star Stallone and the studio messing with the film in post, and co-star Rutger Hauer losing both his mother and best friend during the production. In his enjoyable autobiography, Hauer complains that Stallone essentially took over the film to the degree that at least one key speech for his character got cut and much was taken away from Billy Dee Williams’ character. So Williams is just there to play Stallone’s sidekick to give Stallone someone to talk to, Hauer is just there to be Stallone’s foil to kill, Lindsay Wagner is even more wasted as the girl Stallone will inevitably need to save, and Nigel Davenport plays the tough Harry Andrews senior officer part who is merely there to spur Stallone on. The characters around Stallone serve him instead of the entire film, if you get my meaning. Sure, a lot of films do that but with Hauer’s complaints (and there are others including Stallone allegedly causing Hauer to be injured in the latter’s final scene), it’s hard to look at the film and not see it as primarily a Sly Stallone ego trip, and that perhaps the director and studio let his ego run riot over the entire production. And post-production for that matter. You see, I can understand producers wanting to frame things as a Sly Stallone vehicle because he was the big star at the time and a box-office attraction. Yes, he had come off some flops, and Hauer reckoned this motivated his hands-on approach. But still, Stallone was a big name. However, test screenings revealed something rather interesting. Apparently there was an edit of the film that emphasised the Hauer character and an edit that emphasised Stallone’s – and the Hauer-heavy one tested better with audiences. Stallone allegedly responded to this by having more of Hauer’s scenes cut out in the re-edit. Of course he did. Good ‘ol Sly. Years later and Stallone is now blaming the studio for mishandling the film and robbing us of a great Rutger Hauer performance. Yeah. Of course he is.

 

Ranting aside, the most relevant thing here is that Stallone doesn’t commit to giving much of a performance in order to warrant the emphasis on his character, really. He’s easily the least interesting thing here. Stallone is mopey and not really a great choice for the part. He can act – “Rocky”, “First Blood”, and “Cop Land” show that – but here he seems to be strangely uncomfortable on screen. As good as the film is, the problems show and I know who I think the blame should be directed towards. Honestly, the only flaws here are Stallone’s performance, a dreadful music score (more on that in a minute), and that it needs about an extra 10-15 minutes. Give more time to some character depth for the Hauer, Williams, and Wagner characters and the film would be even stronger.

 

In spite of all the problems, Rutger Hauer still manages to deliver one of his best-ever performances. His first American feature film, Hauer is immediately creepy as international terrorist Wulfgar. He looks orgasmic after watching one of his bombs go off, which is positively chilling. This guy is single-minded, ruthless, and terrifyingly cold-blooded in his pursuit of infamy-via-terrorism. Meanwhile, the brown contact lenses he wears early on somehow manage to transform Hauer enough that it takes a while to even recognise him. Nigel Davenport gives a ‘big’ performance but a good one, whilst Stallone’s influence also extended to his friends Tony Munafo and Joe Spinell getting roles. The latter gives a good turn as the angry, disinterested police lieutenant. The underrated, smooth Billy Dee Williams makes his minutes count in an excellent performance in Stallone’s inflated shadow. Lindsay Wagner is fine, even if she doesn’t seem to have the greatest romantic chemistry with Stallone. On the downside we get an absolutely dreadful Keith Emerson score. It’s exactly the score you’d expect from the prog rocker and first part of the band name Emerson, Lake, and Palmer and it’s the drizzling shits. Meanwhile, all the disco music and club scenes let you know that this thing was filmed several years before its 1981 release. Disco was long dead by that point, or certainly it wasn’t still fashionable.

 

A damn good terrorist thriller that could’ve been even more damn good if not for obvious interference in its making. Rutger Hauer is outstanding, the music is not. Director Bruce Malmuth (who later directed Steven Seagal’s best film “Hard to Kill”) was a late replacement for original director Gary Nelson, apparently at Stallone’s request. He does a pretty bang-up job with the action in particular. The screenplay by David Shaber (“The Warriors”) is based on a story by Shaber and production designer Paul Sylbert of all people (who only had one other writing credit).

 

Rating: B-