I Can't Believe I Watched That: Hudson Hawk

I Can't Believe I Watched That
(A continuing series on films from my childhood that I (re)discovered on Netflix Watch Now)
(Spoilers abound - you've been warned)

Hudson Hawk
Directed by Michael Lehmann

In which: Hudson Hawk, the world's greatest cat burglar (Bruce Willis) gets blackmailed by the world's richest couple (Richard E. Grant & Sandra Bernhard) into stealing the world's most famous art treasures (which secretly contain pieces of a mythical, lost machine created by Leonardo Da Vinci to turn lead into gold).

I Can't Believe They Made That! There are good movies, there are bad movies, there are movies that are so bad they're good, and then there's Hudson Hawk. This is a movie so terribly idiotic that I cannot comprehend how anyone behind it, wither director, producer, actor, writer, etc, thought that they could make even a passably bad movie out of it. Case in point.

The plot is inane.
Example: Why on earth would the villainous couple hire Hudson Hawk to steal a piece of art only to easily purchase a duplicate of said art the next day at an auction? And then on top of that why would they cause the duplicate to explode right after they bid on it?

The supporting characters are ill-defined.
Examples:
James Coburn plays a rogue CIA operative leading a team named after candy bars (Kit Kat, Snickers, Butterfinger, etc) whose only goal seems to double-cross people and be double-crossed.
Andy MacDowell plays a nun who makes out with Hawk, let's the villains blow up the above mentioned duplicate, and works with the CIA, then tries to double-cross them when she learns that they are trying to double-cross her, but they might not be really trying to double-cross her, so who really knows.
Danny Aiello plays Hawk's best friend who initially sells his best friend out to the villains for the money because he's not making enough money from his uber-sucessfull yuppy club.
David Caruso plays one of the candy bars whose sole role is imitate the people around him and get killed before he can do anything.
Frank Stallone… well, Frank Stallone. 'Nuff Said.

The action is idiotic.
Example: Danny Aiello drives off a 1000 ft cliff in a limo that gets shot by a rocket launcher and explodes mid-fall, and he survives due to airbags and a sprinkler system.

This leads to a theory:

They decided to make a bad movie.

Not cheap bad or low quality bad or reaching for the stars bad - just simply a bad movie. And in the process have a shit-load of fun. Cause, honestly the movie is pretty damn fun. Yeah, nothing makes sense, but everyone seems to be having such a good time that in the end so even though I might have snarfed when Willis asks his McDowell to "play Nintendo with him," I knew WIllis and McDowell were snarfing with me.

What does all this mean in the end? Should you give up 90 minutes of your time to see this movie? No. But if one day you're lying on your couch, sick from disease or man-made causes, you might want to trade those 90 minutes for some time with Hawk and his "friends." Of course in full disclosure you will have "Swinging from the Stars" stuck in your head for at least the next 48 hours.

What the critics said then:

''Now and then, a Hollywood megabomb explodes with so much force that it actually sheds some light. "Hudson Hawk," a colossally sour and ill-conceived misfire, is at least a film from which someone may learn something, if only the hard way.
A star (Bruce Willis) out of touch with the qualities that have made him popular. A relatively new director (Michael Lehmann, who made "Heathers") who is in way over his head. And a producer (Joel Silver) who's known for vulgar hits ("48 Hours," "Die Hard" "Lethal Weapon") but this time delivers only vulgarity. These are contributing factors to the "Hudson Hawk" debacle, which is one of the very special ones, the kind that will be spoken of in the same breath with "The Bonfire of the Vanities" and "Howard the Duck." Smirky, mean-spirited cynicism is the spirit that unites all three.
- Janet Maslin, NY Times