“Shy.
Sensitive.
Law-abiding.
Polite.
Respectful.

…I don’t think so.”

In the early eighties – or was it the late seventies? – of the previous century, the then unknown Bruce Willis and his long-time friend Danny Aiello (who sadly died back in 2019) performed as singers and had gigs at several nightclubs and bars. One of the songs they had composed was “Hudson Hawk”. During these days, the two made a mutual promise that if one of them will make it to the top (well, Aiello broke into films already in the early seventies and acted in famous motion pictures like “The Godfather – Part II”, “Once upon a Time in America” or “Do the Right Thing”; however, in his long career he mostly performed as supporting character), they will make a movie based on their song. Eventually, Bruce Willis’ meteoric rise to Hollywood stardom (particularly because of his two box-office hits “Die Hard” and its successor “Die Hard 2: Die Harder”) set the course for the realisation of their common dream…

…or at least, so it’s said…


Free as a Jailbird…
“Long ago, the duke of Milan commissioned a little-known artist to erect a mammoth statue of a horse. The time was 1481. The artist was Leonardo da Vinci…

…anyway, they called this statue the Sforza and it was gonna be the largest bronze statue ever built. But wouldn’t you know it war broke out, and bronze became scarce. So da Vinci decided to create a machine to change common lead into bronze. But when da Vinci finally turned this machine on it was to give him something more than he expected. Something much more than bronze…

Exactly 500 years later an artiste of a different field – the one of cat burglary – was getting out of Sing Sing. He was known as the Hudson Hawk.”

Just out of prison, Hawk’s (Bruce Willis) sleazy parole officer Gates (Burtt Harris) wants him to break into Rutherford’s Auction House to steal a precious artwork, da Vinci’s famous horse sculpture, the “Sforza”. However, Gates is only a puppet on a string; in fact, he’s working for the Mario Brothers – no, not Mario and Luigi, but Cesar and Antony - leaders of Jersey’s third-largest mafia clan. As if that wasn't bad enough, Eddie “Hudson Hawk” Hawkins and his friend and partner in crime, Tommy "Five-Tone" Messina (Danny Aiello), have to struggle with a group of renegade CIA agents, called the “MTV-IA”, headed by George Kaplan (James Coburn, “The Great Escape”, “Duck, You Sucker!”, “Maverick”) as well as the Mayflowers (Richard E. Grant and Sandra Bernhard), an extremely rich but also absolutely crazy couple who wants to disrupt the global gold market. Their foolhardy plan: After reconstructing Leonardo da Vinci’s “La Macchina dell’Oro”, which can turn lead into gold, they’ll flood the market with so much of the noble metal that gold itself will lose its meaning – and thus their own financial empire will rise…

Unfortunately, the devil’s in the details, because to get the machine working correctly, three special crystals are essential - and those are hidden in several of Leonardo’s works: The “Sforza” is one of them, the “Codex Trivulzianus” (aka “Da Vinci Codex”) as well as a scale model of his “Aerial Screw” are the remaining two. So, someone must “retrieve” these objects - now, who’s the one who should do the dirty job? I'll give you three guesses…
 
Yes, the world is a bad place, but there’s a silver lining on the horizon, namely Anna Baragli (Andie MacDowell, “Sex, Lies, and Videotape”, “Short Cuts”, “Groundhog Day”). Soon, she becomes Hawk’s love interest - however, she’s no trustworthy, too, because in fact she’s an operative for a secretive Vatican counter-espionage agency… and, to top it all off, an honest-to-goodness nun! Well, it seems that the cards are stacked against Hawk…

So, actually the plot sounds very entertaining, besides the cast is promising for a ninety’s movie, isn’t it? Think again! As a matter of fact, “Hudson Hawk” was panned by the critics and a commercial flop: Produced with a budget of $65 million, it grossed only $17 million in the US (including earning three “Golden Raspberry Awards”!) - overseas again, it was much more successful with box-office takings of $80 million; that makes a worldwide total of $97 million. Moreover, the silver screen adventure performed well on home video, which made it profitable in the end. Particularly in German cinemas “Hudson Hawk” enjoyed great popularity; about 868.407 people saw the movie! Maybe, it’s due to the German dubbing, because many of the film’s lines weren’t translated 1:1 and even those scenes without any dialogue spoken have been added with speech! In my opinion, that makes the motion picture far more fun than its original version.


“Swinging on a Star”
Hawk: “Cute shot, Antony. Cesar Mario. Antony Mario. I didn’t know the circus was in town.”
Cesar: “So why won’t you do the auction house?”
Hawk: “Well, call me superstitious, Cesar. I don’t like to commit a crime within 24 hours of getting out of jail.”
Cesar: “It’s very simple. There’s a safe on the seventh floor. You take their thingy and put it in this thingy.”
Hawk: “Directions even your brother could understand.”
Antony: “Yeah, directions even I could understand.”
Cesar: “Shut up. Hawk, you’re the best. You’re the only one who can do this job. You know that. Don’t tell me you wanna open up a hardware store, go straight and sell spatulas.”

Unlike other movie-tie-in games, like e.g. “Back to the Future II/III”, “Batman: The Movie” or “Ghostbusters II”, whose gameplay changes with each level, “Hudson Hawk” is an action-oriented jump’n’run in the style of “The Blues Brothers” or “Rick Dangerous”. The program is split into 13 stages, based on three specific settings of the film. The first five stages take place in Rutherford’s Auction House, where Hawk must crack a safe and steal da Vinci’s “Sforza”. Just like in the movie, the robbery starts on top of the neighbour building: There, a barking guard dog and some s(h)itting birds spell trouble for Hawk. By the way, after the opening credits, a self-running demo starts, which gives information about the actions the player can perform: In contrast to the movie, our master cat burglar isn’t unarmed, but is able to deal out blows and throw soft balls towards the enemies. Furthermore, boxes, piles of books or the like can be pushed and stacked to reach higher areas.

After Hawk made his way across an urban canyon hand over hand along a rope (in “Lionheart” style), he reaches the Auction House’s roof. Finally, move the wooden boxes in the right position, jump on the windowsill and slip through the open window – that was easy, wasn’t it? But now, things will become much more difficult, ‘cause Stage 2 (“Auction House Corridors”) is crowded with security guards (some of them armed with guns, so get down!), more guard dogs, overzealous janitors, sensation-seeking paparazzi (in such a place?), bicycling babies with pacifiers (what the hell…?) and surveillance cameras - if our hero steps in their field of vision, he’ll be stunned for one or two seconds. So, Hawk should fire a ball at them to deactivate those “eye-catchers”… at least, for a short time. Besides, you can use the punch/ball to manipulate switches that open doors or deactivate fans. But the corridors aren’t only crammed with baddies and obstacles! There are useful things, too, that make Hawk’s life a little more pleasant, such as comfortable armchairs, which enable him to jump further – and how about some collectable items, like hearts (fill up the vitality bar), hamburgers, moneybags (raise the score) or stopwatches (restore precious time)?


Unknown Territory
Tommy: “We got a nasty little safe on the seventh floor.”
Hawk: “Simpson?”
Tommy: “Yeah.”
Hawk: “What’s the mechanism?”
Tommy: “Seventy-one.”
Hawk: “Last time I went to bat, Simpson only made a 40.”
Tommy: “So it’s gonna take you another extra 31 seconds to seduce it.”
Hawk: “I’m not worried about the safe.”
Tommy: “I know.”

In Stage 3 (“Air Ducts”) we start in the boiler room – that’s strange, as far as I can remember, such a place wasn’t contained in the motion picture?! Well, this is called “artistic licence”, and there are much more areas in the game, which originate from the imagination of the development team Special FX (“The Untouchables”, “Midnight Resistance”, “RoboCop 2”); thus, these don’t appear in the movie…

Eventually (Stage 5), Hawk stands in front of the safe: Within a short time-limit he has to crack the steely keeper of priceless artwork by entering the right digits. Actually, a welcome change compared to the non-stop action of the previous stages… so, best of luck!


Vatican Secrets
Hawk: “What in the world is this?”
Anna: “It’s a postal subway.”
Hawk: “Can I get to Times Square from here?”
Anna: “No. The pope takes his mail seriously. Christmas cards, Easter Seals. Delivers up to 10 at night.”
Hawk: “I see. Well, actually, I don’t see. I’m very confused. How do you know all this stuff? What do you do?”
Anna: “Well, I do a lot of things. But I don’t steal stuffed elephants from little girls. My life’s pretty boring.”
Hawk: “Yeah, mine too.”

After stealing the “Sforza”, Hawk’s next area of operation is Vatican City in Rome, more precisely, St. Peter's Basilica: Here, Leonardo da Vinci’s famous sketchbook, the “Codex Trivulzianus”, is stored under heavy security measures – well, no risk, no reward!

The thievery begins at the “Poste Vaticane” (Stage 6), a (fictional) Vatican secret railway platform. Just like in the first stage, you have to move boxes – this time cardboard boxes – to jump to higher areas, moreover, several lifts will take you to platforms out of reach. The enemy squad consists of bomb-throwing nuns and even two familiar faces from the motion picture, namely Snickers (Don Harvey) as well as the colossal but bloody stupid Butterfinger (Andrew Bryniarski) in their waiter disguise and postman outfit respectively. At the end of the station platform, a ladder leads into the “Vatican Tunnels” (Stage 7), another setting that wasn’t part of the film. In a way, this section is the equivalent to the Auction House’s “Air Ducts”, containing a lot more ladders and horizontally tied ropes. To make matters worse, giant rats, (Yuck!), more of the above-mentioned nuns, back and forth moving platelayer’s trolleys and projectile-spitting pipes give Hawk a hard time - however, opening doors and turning off fans isn’t necessary anymore. Eventually, our cunning master thief exits the winding tunnels through a round window and afterwards finds himself on “The Vatican Roof” (Stage 8)…

“Inside the Vatican” (Stage 9) we encounter pie-throwing nuns (or should that be monks?) and Swiss Guards. Furthermore, there are conveyor belts, which make it difficult to advance. In “The Library” (Stage 10) we even have to deal with a full-grown rhino!!! Oh well, sometimes I think the developers haven’t seen the whole movie, have they? Never mind, because at the end of Stage 11 (“The Codex Room”) - ta-da! - Hawk holds da Vinci’s sketchbook in his hands…

This setting again is definitely part of the movie! Moreover, here Hawk encounters two familiar faces from the motion picture, although the place of their appearance isn't correct...

“Side by Side”
Hawk: “It’s in the hole! The gallery’s ecstatic! He’s gotta be happy with that.”
Tommy: “So two and a half minutes to save Anna, three and a half to save the world?”
Hawk: “6-0-0. ‘Side by Side’?”
Tommy: “Hit it, Eddie!”

Here we go! The grand finale isn’t far away; only Stage 12 (“The Da Vinci Castle”) and 13 (“Inside the Castle”) are remaining. First you have to scale the outside wall of Forte di San Leo: Unfortunately, this attempt is hindered by a mixture of baddies including ballooning gangsters, TV-throwing thugs, sloths, rats (again!), hopping kangaroos (no kidding?) and even a tennis racket-armed Darwin Mayflower! As soon as Hawk has reached the top of that history-charged building, he activates the switch which opens the entrance leading inside the stronghold. Now, the interior décor includes blowing bellows, further conveyor belts and many, many ladders – c’mon, what did you expect? It’s business as usual, and thus, there are the (un)usual suspects: Starting with aggressive bats and floating spectres right up to busty brunettes wearing high heels and crappy Elvis impersonators… Jesus Christ!!!

Finally, Hawk enters the room containing the “La Macchina dell’Oro”, da Vinci’s gold machine – so, make your way straight to the device, grab the crystals and leave this place for good. Congratulations, you have saved the world! As a reward, a nice ending screen, showing Hawk and Anna escaping the castle using Leonardo’s glider, “Great Bird”, appears…

....finally, you can enjoy your cappuccino, Eddie…


The Hawk has landed
Hawk: “Anna?”
Anna: “Yes, Hudson?”
Hawk: “Can I ask you something?”
Anna: “Sure.”
Hawk: “Will you play Nintendo with me?”
Anna: “I can’t think of anybody I’d rather play Nintendo with.”

With “Hudson Hawk”, Ocean and their in-house team Special FX respectively have done a good job. Although it’s not as great as “Batman: The Movie”, nevertheless it’s one of the best games within the genre of movie tie-ins. As I mentioned further up, the gameplay reminds a little bit of “Rick Dangerous”, though it’s much more fast-paced: For one thing, the Firebird/Core Design title contains no scrolling, because each level is split into several rooms, and for another, each of them requires a specific strategy – without the right course of action, you won’t get very far. Conversely, to succeed in “Hudson Hawk”, the player needs good reflexes, due to the fact that (almost) each stage is crowded with enemies!

But what about the game's relationship to the film? Well, it’s a typical movie tie-in of the early nineties, which means if you haven’t any knowledge of the silver screen adventure, you probably never know that the program is based on the (more or less) popular motion picture. But as I said before, “Hudson Hawk” is a movie-to-game licence worth playing for sure!

“With the world saved and the secrets of da Vinci protected Eddie finally got his coffee.”