Un tremendo bluff que no salvaban ni el siempre correcto Danny Aiello ni la siempre agradecida presencia de Andie Mc Dowell.
El robo de obras de arte, un tema controvertido y apasionante al mismo tiempo. Hudson Hawk (1991) es el ejemplo perfecto para adentrarnos en el mundo de los ladrones de obras de arte. El protagonista del film se llama Hudson Hawk (Willis), un ladrón de guante blanco que sale de prisión antes de tiempo con la condición de que realice un último trabajo. Esferas corruptas de la policía y otras organizaciones le obligarán a robar una serie de obras que esconden fragmentos de un antiguo artefacto alquímico que fue ideado por el mismo Leonardo da Vinci.
A lo largo de la película vemos como Hudson Hawk utiliza sus estrafalarios métodos para cometer los robos, sin embargo esta visión se aleja un poco de lo que ocurre en la realidad. En muchas ocasiones, los ladrones no necesitan mucha pericia para robar una obra de arte, simplemente sangre fría. Se aprovechan de los escasos sistemas de seguridad que tienen algunos museos para hacer el trabajo sin problemas. Lo único que tienen que hacer es descolgar el cuadro sin que nadie les vea y salir por la puerta.
El ejemplo más reciente relacionado con este sencillo método es el del famoso ladrón que entró en la Weinstein Gallery de San Francisco y robó un dibujo de Pablo Picasso titulado Cabeza de mujer (1965). Entró en la galería a plena luz del día, descolgó el dibujo de la pared y se marchó en un taxi. ¡Bravo por la seguridad de la Weinstein Gallery!
La película, pese a estar protagonizada por Bruce Willis y Andie MacDowell, es más bien floja y en ocasiones bastante ridícula.
Uno de los robos más famosos de la historia reciente es el de El grito (1893) de Edvard Munch. En este caso, un grupo de ladrones entraron en la Galería Nacional de Noruega para robar la obra e incluso se tomaron la molestia de dejar una nota que decía así: “Gracias por la falta de seguridad”. Afortunadamente, el cuadro fue recuperado.
Hudson Hawk 1991 1080p BluRay x264 PSYCHD [PublicHD]
Hudson Hawk 1991 720p BluRay x264 PSYCHD [PublicHD]Real Men Aren't Quite Sure How to Feel About Hudson Hawk
ByAnthony Burch September 05, 2007 - 8:00 am | PermalinkHudson Hawk is quite the oddity: as a film deeply despised at the time of its release, one might think it a generally awful movie with no redeeming qualities. However, time and sufficiently altered expectations make the film much easier to appreciate and enjoy in this day and age – yet even so, many aspects of it still suck really, really, really hard. Is it a clever satire of dumb, modern action films? Or is it just a dumb, modern action film? Or is it both? Whatever the hell Hudson Hawk truly is, one thing is for certain: real men aren’t quite sure how to feel about it.
Bad guys named after candy bars
As a starting point for the weirdness that is Hudson Hawk,
why not start with the bad guys – a group of four ex-CIA assassins
named Snickers, Kit Kat (played by David Caruso in his best and most
expressive role in years – not only does he only communicate through
note card for the entire film, but he spends a few scenes dressing up as
and imitating other characters just for the fun of it), Butterfinger,
and Almond Joy. Evidently, these are code names (“we used to all be
named after STD’s,” Almond Joy says at one point; “You have any idea
what it’s like spending a year as Chlamydia?”), but for no reason
whatsoever, each character tends to frequently eat the candy bar
associated with their name.
Considering Hudson Hawk
is really just an absurdist comedy dressed up as a summer action film,
what is the viewer to take from this? Is the naming of these criminals
meant to be an ironic, clever jab at action films whose enemies are so
cookie-cutter that they can only be differentiated by name and
appearance? Is it meant to be an attack on overt product placement in
action films? Or did co-writer and star Bruce Willis simply think it’d
be funny to name bad guys after candy bars, and he left it at that? The
characters come off as stupid and unthreatening – but were they supposed
to? The myriad of questions prompted by these characters’ existence is
enough to make them interesting, even if they really aren’t.
The fairytale-style bookends
The
beginning and ending of the film are – without rhyme, reason, or
warning – narrated by an old, wise-sounding man who tells the story of Hudson Hawk as it were the tale of Romeo and Juliet. Considering the actual film is cartoony and anything but
epic or fairytale-ish in nature, the bookends give the film an
extremely surreal mood that the average viewer will either really enjoy
or absolutely hate.
Bruce Willis knows how to mug
As
mentioned earlier, Bruce Willis co-wrote the story, and as such a
significant amount of the film is filled with Willis’ character spouting
off clever one-liners and joking around – imagine Willis circa Moonlighting crossed with Willis circa Die Hard and you’ll get the general idea.
Because Hudson Hawk
is nothing if not dichotomous, Willis’ antics are funny about half the
time (when Andie MacDowell misses a bad guy and shoots Willis in the
shoulder: “GAAH! STOP HELPING ME!”), but irritating as all hell the rest
of the time, as seen in the above screenshot where Willis is almost
brought to orgasm by a curious dog, who later gets kicked through a
window. One thing is for sure, though: throughout the entire film, the
single most niggling emotion the viewer will feel will be his desire to
physically rip out the three gold earrings in Willis’ left ear. Forgive
me, but they look fucking absurd.
The absurd gurney chase
Roughly
a third of the way through the film, Hudson is injured and wakes up in
an ambulance, surrounded by a couple of gangsters known as the Mario
Brothers (did I mention the film includes an ongoing Nintendo motif?).
After jabbing a few hypodermic needles into one of the brothers’ faces,
the back doors of the ambulance accidentally fly open and Hudson, riding
a mobile gurney, flies out. What follows is one of the more cartoony
chases in recent memory, as Hudson dodges traffic, grabs a stray
cigarette thrown out of a car window (right before making sure to take
one last drag off it), and deals with stupid bystanders (“Hey mister,
are you gonna die?”) right before the ambulance pursuing him takes a
wrong turn and, for no logical reason what-so-fucking-ever, explodes in a ball of fire.
Were
this any other film, I’d be tempted to pass it off as a patently stupid
car chase and leave it at that. But considering the film was intended
as a satirical action-comedy and was directed by the dude who did Heathers, I have to wonder: was this chase supposed to be stupid and bombastic and unnecessary? If so, it may be a work of patent genius; if not, it just sucks twelve different flavors of scrotum.
Andie MacDowell’s dolphin impression
When
female lead Andie MacDowell is captured by the bad guys, one assumes
that her subsequent interrogation scene will unfold more or less
according to action movie cliché: someone yells at her to tell them
where ____ is (in this case, Hudson Hawk), and when she refuses, she’s
beaten around a bit but never reveals her secret so as to prove her
loyalty to the side of righteousness.
Instead of all that shit, however, Andie simply ignores all of their questions and, wide-eyed, mutters the following:
“I must speak with the dolphins now.”
For
literally the next ninety seconds, Andie MacDowell utters the most
high-pitched, unusual and irritating impression of a dolphin I have
heard or ever will hear for the rest of my life. For a cute Texan gal,
MacDowell sure knows how to do a pretty goddamn terrifying dolphin
impression.
Richard E Grant
If there’s one actor in Hudson Hawk who knows exactly what the hell he is doing and should be endlessly congratulated for it, it’s Richard E. Grant. As
one of the few actors who seems to genuinely enjoy his role in this
cartoony clusterfuck of a film, Grant happily hams it up in every scene
he’s in, and steals the movie as a result.
As
a character who delivers dialogue like “What can I say? I’m the
villain,” “History, tradition, culture: these are trophies I keep in my
den as paperweights” and “Hudson Hawk go boom-boom; he dead,” Grant has a
constant look of wide-eyed, maniacal glee that perfectly fits the tone
of the film and results in a few genuine laughs.
After all, we’re talking about a villain who literally
shouts “GO TEAM GO” and humps the air as his evil plan goes into effect
– he’s a parody of your typical Bond villain, yeah, but he’s so
incredibly over-the-top that he’s pretty damn fun to watch.
Sandra Bernhard
On the downside, Sandra Bernhard is in the film. So, there’s that.
The paralysis scene
Remember
what I said about Bruce Willis and his ability to mug like there’s no
tomorrow? The scene where he and Danny Aiello get paralyzed from the
neck down might be the perfect example of this.
As
both Willis and Aiello’s characters are mad as hell but do not have the
physical ability to fight their enemies, the two, side by side on a
couch, just sort of sit there for two or three minutes and angrily bite
the air and yell whilst thrashing their necks back and forth in some
showcase of unfiltered male aggression. It’s tough to explain without
seeing the scene yourself – and no way am I going through the trouble of
uploading it to YouTube – but if you ever want to see Bruce Willis at
the absolute nadir of his career as a cool, tough guy, look no further
than this scene.
The Jesus-Phone
As
Andie Macdowell’s character is a secret spy for the Vatican, the pope
directly contacts her through a wall-mounted Jesus phone that lights up
whenever he calls.
Cut it any way you like: that’s pretty damn funny.
The least funny visual gag in the history of cinema
Generally
speaking, I can defend most things in this film as ironic statements on
the state of action films, or as screwball jokes misinterpreted by an
audience hoping for another Die Hard film, but there is literally no way for me to explain why the climactic fight scene between Bruce Willis and James Coburn is so. Fucking. Bad.
After
some fisticuffsmanship, Coburn kicks Willis in the stomach and causes
him to double over. Coburn then kicks him in the face, causing Willis to
stand back up, at which point he kicks him in the back and causes him
to double over again. This goes on for a few seconds, but eventually
Coburn stops kicking Willis altogether, but Willis continues to stand up
and bend over again, as if he’s still being kicked. Think of one of
those drinking birds and you’ll get the idea.
In addition to being pretty much nonsensical in every single way, the scene isn’t even remotely
funny. There’s really nothing to be said for it: a mechanical winding
noise can be loudly heard as Willis continues to stand up and bend over,
as if his motions are beyond his control, but the scene doesn’t go
anywhere from that point. Willis drops his hat at one point and bends
down, at which point Coburn does a flying kick, misses Willis
completely, and flies off the roof the two were standing on, but at no point in this scene does anything even approaching comedy ever come into play.
James Coburn’s dying words
Still,
James Coburn’s dying words – heard a few minutes later, as he careens
off a cliff atop a driverless limousine – are absolutely perfect. As the
car speeds off the cliff, just moments away from exploding in the way
all cars in action films tend to once they drop from large heights,
Coburn looks at the camera and screams,
“MY PENSION!”
Then the car explodes and he dies.
Classic.
The most forced one-liner ever written
At
the very, very end of the film (it seems like the movie is going to end
about eight times before it actually does), Willis squares off against
an evil, British butler with huge-ass knives coming out of his sleeves.
After struggling with him and getting a painful-looking, but ultimately
superficial blade wound to his chest (seriously, must all swordfights
involve one character getting wounded in this fashion?), Bruce grabs the
baddie’s knives, sticks them into the door on either side of the
baddies head, and quickly slams the door. The baddie’s knives become
unstuck from the door as he falls forward but as he hits the ground, the
knives cross paths toward his neck and end up decapitating him.
It
is at this point that Bruce looks at the body of his fallen foe and
delivers the single most forced and unnatural post-kill one-liner I have
ever heard:
“You won’t be attending that hat convention in July!”
Okay.
Fine. We’ll say it’s a self-referential spoof of the typical and
over-the-top one-liners we hear in regular action films on a daily
basis. Sure. That doesn’t change the fact that this particular one-liner is more groan-inducing than a bad case of acid reflux. Seriously, hat convention? People don’t actually have conventions just to sit around and talk about hats, do they? And even if they did, you’re telling me that you couldn’t come up with a better decapitation-related one liner? My god.
“Side by Side”
For
the sake of ending this installment of Real Men Love on an upbeat note,
I do have to give props where props are due (even if a significant
portion of the people who have seen this movie might disagree with me).
Throughout the film, Hudson Hawk synchronizes heists and other escapades
not by using a watch as any intelligent person would, but by singing a
song to himself – the film has a running joke where other characters
will offhandedly mention a song title and Hudson will immediately reply
with the song’s running time. This storytelling conceit results in a
carefree, entertaining heist sequence near the start of the film where
Willis and Aiello steal a priceless artifact whilst separately singing
“Swingin’ on a Star” so as to match up their movements. While that scene
is cheesy and obviously unrealistic, it works as intended: it’s fun.
The only downside is that “Swingin’ on a Star” is – and there’s no
getting around this – a shitty-ass song.
Much
more entertaining is the action sequence near the end: Willis and
Aiello, armed with a rocket launcher, have once again teamed up to
rescue Andie MacDowell from the bowels of Richard E Grant’s castle. Once
again, the two use a song in order to synchronize their movements, but
this time, the song is actually pretty good: specifically, “Side by Side.”
Never
before have I seen a film where the two male leads simultaneously sing
together whilst firing rockets at bad guys, but I’m not too surprised to
say that it’s something I’d like to see again. The “Side by Side” scene
is like the “Swingin’ on a Star” scene, but with a better song and more
explosions. Bruce Willis, Danny Aiello, showtunes, and explosions? What
more could you want?
Well, quite a bit, incidentally. But hey; that’s why Real Men Aren’t Quite Sure How to Feel About Hudson Hawk.
DVD
"The Story of 'Hudson Hawk'" (30 minutes) boasts participation by Bruce Willis, commentating on one of the most controversial films of his career. What could've been a tightly edited, informative featurette is instead a loose, improvisational patience-tester, where Willis sits down with Robert Kraft, discussing their friendship while tinkling on a piano and singing. They do manage to discuss the musical origin of the character, and Willis takes a moment to deride critics who "didn't get" the film during its theatrical release, stating the film was "ahead of its time" and is now in profit.
Willis never confronts the rumors surrounding the production of the film, instead making it clear he's proud of the picture and holds a general disregard for those who weren't enchanted by the carnival-ride nature of the picture. Overall, it's a dull sit, failing to reveal information worth the 15 years it's taken Willis to properly comment on the film. In fact, you learn more about Kraft's vocational background than the movie. An opportunity wasted.
"My Journey to Minerva" (11 minutes) isn't so much an interview with Sandra Bernhard as it is a performance piece where the actress briefly recalls her time as the wicked queen of gold. If not completely honest about her months on the "Hawk" set (in his book "With Nails," Richard Grant wrote a far more unflattering account of filming) Bernhard still offers hilarious anecdotes and memories, performed in a cutting monologue style.
"Deleted Scenes" (5 minutes) solves the greatest mystery surrounding the production: what happened to Hawk's pet monkey? We find out in a series of short clips. We also learn how Tommy got his nickname and how a certain flying special effect was achieved. Overall, a lackluster mix.
"'Hudson Hawk" Trivia Track" is a standard issue experience, displaying text on the bottom of the screen during the movie that spews simple production and historical facts. Did you know Bruce Willis was often teased as a kid? That Jennifer Jason Leigh was up for the role of Minerva? Or that Bunny, that ball-ball lovin' dog, was deaf?
"'Hudson Hawk' Theme Music Video" (4 minutes) is an embarrassing time capsule from 1991. A video directed by a very young Antoine Fuqua, the lethargic Dr. John track is given overblown noir visual flourishes, while also including Willis and clips from the movie in on the "fun."
Trailers for "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," "The Detonator," and "Ultraviolet" are provided.
Ported over from the 1999 DVD:
A feature-length audio commentary from director Michael Lehmann is an appealing listen, even if the filmmaker declares right at the start of the track that he refuses to dish on the film's troubles. Even without the juicy details, Lehmann is an engaging speaker, keeping the information flowing about the film's comedic intention (an idea he sells a little too desperately), the various Rome and Budapest locations, and discussing the puzzled reaction the movie received upon release.
ENLACES/FUENTES:
http://arteparati.org/tag/hudson-hawk/
http://campmoviecamp.blogspot.com.ar/2011/04/hudson-hawk-1991.html
http://publichd.se/index.php?page=torrents&search=&active=0&category=2%3B5
http://thepiratebay.se/search/HUDSON+HAWK/0/3/200
http://www.bsospirit.com/comentarios/hudsonhawk.php
http://dvdcompare.net/comparisons/film.php?fid=555
http://www.dvdinmypants.com/reviews/H-N/hudson_hawk.php
http://www.listal.com/movie/hudson-hawk-1991/pictures
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