One Man Can Bring The World To Its Knees And Only One Man Can Stop Him.
Starring: Sylvester Stallone, Billy Dee Williams, Lindsay Wagner, Persis Khambatta, Nigel Davenport, Rutger Hauer
Director: Bruce Malmuth
1981 | 99 Minutes | Rated R
“I didn’t join the police force to kill people.” – Deke DaSilva
Nighthawks is a Stallone movie that rarely gets talked about. There is probably a reason for it. It’s not exactly Rambo, The Expendables or even Rocky. Nighthawks is a police action drama with 70s pacing. It just doesn’t fit the rest of his filmography and probably doesn’t click with a lot of his fans.
Deke DaSilva (Sylvester Stallone) and Matthew Fox (Billy Dee Williams) are two tough New York City cops track down Wulfgar (Rutger Hauer), a German terrorist who moves his politically motivated acts of destruction to the USA.
It’s a little weird to see Stallone looking like this. Longer hair, glasses and a beard just don’t seem right on him but this has to be one of Stallone’s top performances. Deke DaSilva is a realistic, albeit shallow, character.
The part of Matthew Fox could have been played by anyone. He is really nothing more than DaSilva’s partner. We get that there is a relationship there but it isn’t as fleshed out as it should have been.
Rutger Hauer absolutely steals the show. His Wulfgar is 100% believable as a political terrorist and his performance is “cant take my eyes off the screen” good.
As I said, Nighthawks isn’t a balls to the wall action movie. It is an intense cop drama thriller with a wicked terrorist baddie.
Nighthawks is a tricky animal. On one hand it is pretty slow moving with a minimal amount of action. On the other hand the performances are truly awesome. I normally don’t have as much fun with a movie that moves at a turtles pace but Nighthawks had enough going on that the pace didn’t hold it back. I’m not sure I will be watching Nighthawks again any time soon but I definitely enjoyed it.
Action Movie Fanatix 