Hudson Hawk is an under-rated comedy in my opinion. Largely a star vehicle for Bruce Willis, it is an absurdist, screwball comedy that sees him as showtune singing cat burglar on a quest around Europe.
It failed at the box office, but I could never understand why. It’s part comedy, part musical, part action film. I guess people at the time were expecting another Die Hard, and this is certainly not that, so they were put off, but it showcases perhaps the best example of the cocky, self-assured Bruce Willis on-screen persona, so if you like that, you should enjoy this. He’s on fine form, especially for the musical numbers, with “Swinging on a Star” being a highlight.
Describing the plot is a bit redundant as it is deliberately nonsensical and cartoonish. This is probably not helped by the editing, which feels like it was one of those troubled high budget films where the studio forced the director to cut out lots of material. Even so almost everything works. It’s joyously silly, filled with quotable dialog, and has excellent cinematography as it jumps around New York, London and Rome.
All of the cast are great, with Richard E. Grant and Sandra Bernhard being standouts as the insane Mayflowers.
Notably it is one of the only, if not the only, mainstream films to feature the automated London Post Office Railway, supposedly running under the Vatican, but it’s quite obvious what it is. It acts a little time capsule, preserving the service in high definition, now that it is permanently closed.
Toll both? Exact change?