Hudson Hawk (1991)

This movie had the most ludicrous plot. I would put it in the same category as that shitty John Malkovich comedy. When I came across it in Netflix, I was surprised I had never heard of it before. I love Bruce Willis and I considered myself a fan of all his movies. Not this one.

The one thing that lifts it out of complete dreckitude is the James Coburn-Bruce Willis fight near the end. James Coburn was still capable of badassery, even though he was probably in his 70's. (63 according to some math I just did. Whatever.) The point is that he was awesome.

Okay, so the actual plot of this movie is as follows: Bruce Willis is "the best cat burglar in the world" who has just done a dime in Sing Sing. (I speak prison! Thanks, Law & Order!) He gets out and is immediately pressed to do One Last Job by his parole officer, who is in the pay of Frank Stallone's mafia. By immediately, they are walking down the halls of the prison as this is occurring, with guards and inmates lining the walls....and discussing an illegal act that the parole officer wants accomplished.... You begin to see the problems I had with this movie. Bruce (or Eddie "Hudson Hawk" Hawkins) doesn't want another job, he just wants a damn cappuccino.

He gets picked up by Danny Aiello, his (life)partner and finds out their cool locals bar has turned into a yuppie hangout. Stupid dialogue happens and Frank Stallone convinces Bruce that he should do the One Last Job. He and Danny are to steal a bronze horse sculpted by DaVinci from a museum. They're actually quite cute together, singing old jazz standards to time themselves.

However, these are probably the two worst cat burglars in the world and get every guard in the place chasing them, but they get the horse and get out. Enter the main story: Inside the horse is part of a mechanism that DaVinci hid there from his chrysopoeia machine (that's something that will turn other things to gold, for all you non-alchemists). Yep, that's right. DaVinci built a machine that would turn lead to gold but feared that it would destabilize the world so, instead of setting it on fire and using the written plans to line his bird's cage, he divided it into three parts like a kid's birthday scavenger hunt.

Poor DaVinci. Oh, the atrocities committed under his name! I'm sure the venerable polymath is eagerly anticipating the doomsday machine he could unleash on the perpetrators of this movie upon their arrival to the afterlife.

So, Bruce Willis is a lousy thief, Danny Aiello is his long-suffering husband, James Coburn is a CIA crazy man with a gang of henchmen named after candy bars. (David Caruso plays Kit Kat, a mime, because he hadn't discovered the source of his power: black Ray-bans and The Who. It's fortunate that he plays a mute, however, because the running time is only 1:39.)

Andie McDowell plays a nun, who is also the love interest for Hudson Hawk. Ugh. I can't type any more about this movie. That last sentence broke my brain.