Hudson Hawk | |
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Theatrical release poster
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Directed by | Michael Lehmann |
Produced by | Joel Silver |
Screenplay by |
Steven E. de Souza Daniel Waters |
Story by |
Bruce Willis Robert Kraft |
Starring | |
Narrated by | William Conrad |
Music by |
Michael Kamen Robert Kraft |
Cinematography | Dante Spinotti |
Edited by |
Chris Lebenzon Michael Tronick |
Production
company |
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Distributed by | TriStar Pictures |
Release date
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Running time
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100 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English Italian |
Budget | $65 million |
Box office | $17.2 million |
Hudson Hawk is a 1991 American action comedy film directed by Michael Lehmann.Bruce Willis stars in the title role and also co-wrote both the story and the theme song. Danny Aiello, Andie MacDowell, James Coburn, David Caruso, Lorraine Toussaint, Frank Stallone, Sandra Bernhard, and Richard E. Grant are also featured.
The live action film makes heavy use of cartoon-style slapstick, including sound effects, which enhances the movie's signature surreal humour. The plot combines material based on conspiracy theories, secret societies, and historic mysteries, as well as outlandish "clockpunk" technology à la Coburn's Our Man Flint movies of the 1960s.
A recurring plot device in the film has Hudson and his partner Tommy "Five-Tone" (Aiello) singing songs concurrently but separately, to time and synchronize their exploits. Willis-Aiello duets of Bing Crosby's "Swinging on a Star" and Paul Anka's "Side by Side" feature on the film's soundtrack.
Eddie "Hudson Hawk" Hawkins (Bruce Willis)—"Hudson Hawk" is a nickname for the bracing winds off the Hudson River—is a master burglar and safe-cracker, attempting to celebrate his first day of parole from prison with a cappuccino. Before he can get it, he is blackmailed by various entities, including his own parole officer, a minor Mafia family headed by the Mario Brothers, and the CIA into doing several dangerous art heists with his singing partner in crime, Tommy "Five-Tone" Messina (Danny Aiello).