Nighthawks (1981)

New York City detectives Sylvester Stallone and Billy Dee Williams track down terrorist Rutger Hauer, who has come to the States from Paris after bombing a London department store. Grim, chilling urban thriller with a tight pace from director Bruce Malmuth (an eleventh-hour substitute after Disney-vet Gary Nelson was let go). The script by David Shaber actually began its life as the third "French Connection" film, but was rewritten after Gene Hackman took a pass. Stallone gives a solid performance, arguably his finest screen work away from the boxing ring. The violent scenario spares us none of the horrors of crime in the big city, yet the final 'surprise' scare is right off the Hollywood assembly line (maybe it seemed more fresh in 1981 than it does today). Lindsay Wagner is lovely yet stuck in the proverbial (and thankless) ex-wife role. Otherwise, it's a tense genre effort, one that was surprisingly underrated by critics and overlooked by moviegoers at the time of its release. **1/2 from ****

Nighthawks finds both Sylvester Stallone and Billy Dee Williams cast as a pair of undercover street cops who are picked for an anti- terrorism task force much against their will. It's a task force put together by Interpol and it's target is Rutger Hauer an international terrorist who has found Europe to hot for him and has fled to America with his associate Persis Khambatta.Hauer is really something to see, a stone cold killer who disguises his taste for sick violence by making himself an appointed liberator of the downtrodden people. The film actually opens with him bombing an English department store saying he was protesting British colonialism. By 1981 the British had divested themselves pretty much of their colonies, but Hauer needed an excuse.The finale takes place as Hauer and Khambatta take hostages aboard a Roosevelt Island shuttle tram car. It's nicely staged and the climax worth it. Some of Stallone's undercover skills are employed.Nighhawks is a good action thriller, Stallone fans will be pleased.

Sylvester Stallone, Billy Dee Williams and Rutger Hauer star in this 1981 action thriller. This mainly takes place in New York and Stallone (Rocky, Rambo) plays cop, DaSilva who is determined to stop international terrorist, Wulfgar (Hauer) who makes his work of bombing and killing known through the media. Williams (The Empire Strikes Back) plays DaSilva's partner, Fox who gets slightly injured while in pursuit. Lindsay Wagner (The Bionic Woman) and the late, Joe Spinell (Rocky, Maniac) also appear. This is a good 80's cop/action thriller following in the footsteps of "Dirty Harry," Stallone is great as usual as well as Hauer who always plays a great villain. I recommend this.

Continuing my plan to watch every Sly Stallone movie in order, I come to Nighthawks.Plot In A Paragraph. Deke DaSilva (Stallone playing a Police Officer for the first time in his career) and Matthew Fox (Billy Dee Williams) are two New York City cops who get transferred to an elite anti-terrorism squad. About this same time, an infamous international terrorist called Wulfar (Rutgar Hauer) shows up in New York City.I'm not to sure why audiences stayed away from this movie, as it is a really good cop movie, with Sly (looking very much like Al Pacino in Serpico) putting in a good performance, alongside Billy Dee Williams and Rutgar Hauer. If anything it was ahead of its time. According to Hauer, Stallone was very egoistic and he constantly interfered with filming of the movie, even writing and adding some new scenes for his character because he was jealous that Hauer's character was doing more "cool" stuff in the movie. Two test screenings of the movie were shown, one with more Stallone's scenes and other with more Hauer's scenes. The version with more Hauer's scenes was better received by audience. This is why Stallone, known for his big ego, cut out some of the Hauer's scenes from the final version of the movie. The original cut of the movie was almost two and a half hours long. Stallone was said to be really disappointed with the way Universal studio reedited the movie (despite the fact that he did his share of reediting on the movie prior to the studio's interference). He was really upset because of the removal of his dramatic scenes with Lindsay Wagner, including an emotional scene between him and Wagner in a restaurant (only mentioned in the final version of the movie) where his character breaks down and cries after his wife refuses to remarry with him.Prior to its theatrical release, It was also severely cut for violence by both the MPAA. Amongst the scenes that were cut are the disco shootout which originally had Wufgar shooting and killing more people, and Wufgar's death scene in the ending which was almost completely cut out. An original uncut scene showed Wufgar getting shot five times (instead of twice) in slow-motion by DaSilva, and in the end, the final sixth shot hit him in the head blowing his brains out. An animatronic head of Rutger Hauer was made by special makeup artist Dick Smith and used in this scene.After starting in Rocky, Paradise Alley and Rocky 2, this is Joe Spinell's final appearance in a movie with his friend Sylvester Stallone.