cult film freak: SYLVESTER STALLONE AND RUTGER HAUER IN 'NIGHTHAWKS'

TITLE: NIGHT HAWKS YEAR: 1981 RATING: ***1/2

In any crime flick, the villain moves into the hero's territory, like, say, in the case of THE FRENCH CONNECTION, which NIGHTHAWKS was originally intended to be the third entry of... and Rutger Hauer as a European terrorist does wind up in New York, with a new face and bright blue eyes (he was supposedly surgically-altered to look like what he already looks like): But the way things turn out, it feels like buddy cop partners Sylvester Stallone (sporting an Al Pacino SERPICO beard) and Billy Dee Williams are actually guest-stars in Rutger Hauer's movie...

Especially since the film was ultimately cut to 95-minutes, and by the time narc "decoys" Stallone and Williams are called in for anti-terrorist duty, we know more about Hauer's ruthlessness (from flirting with a sweet Catherine Mary Stewart in a London clothes shop before blowing up the place, to killing off the surgeon and a night-clubbing stewardess) than what makes our hard-edge cops really tick...

Rutger Hauer and Hilarie Thompson in NIGHTHAWKS

They're already bored and whispering quips in the usual grimy precinct meeting room where imported anti-terror British chief Nigel Davenport (basically taking over for barking NY captain Joe Spinell) lectures on how to hunt down Hauer's Wolfgar — and the longtime partners act like they're in a sequel after a proper introduction...

Meanwhile Stallone's incessant reluctance to shoot his gun makes no sense other than forecasting a predictable turnout, and his fledgling marriage to Lindsay Wagner only pays off at the climax...

Sylvester Stallone, Billy Dee Williams & Joe Spinell in NIGHTHAWKS

Which occurs after Stallone's vain attempts to stop Hauer (paired with terrorist moll Persis Khambatta providing a BLACK SUNDAY vibe), following an intense yet overlong tramcar hostage sequence: with an antagonist so horrendous he deserves a thousand painful deaths to a relatively quick one...

So for action movie fans, NIGHTHAWKS is deeper and more interesting than most; however, for those into fleshed-out thrillers, there's simply too much missing beyond the chase sequences that — with the backing of a dark-synth Keith Emeron score — still holds up pretty well, but only on a surface level.

INTERVIEW WITH CATHERINE MARY STEWART AS THE DOOMED BRITISH SHOPGIRL

CATHERINE MARY STEWART: Rutger Hauer was a VERY intimidating man. He scared the crap out of me. I’m not sure if he was just in character, or he really didn’t care for me. Of course I wasn’t supposed to forecast my own demise, so I went for the sweet, perfume salesgirl thing...

A little piece of trivia: I was supposed to be British and having lived there awhile I had a pretty good accent, but apparently they had to overdub me and did so with someone in LA, I assume, because that was not my voice: and the accent wasn’t good, I thought…

CATHERINE MARY STEWART NIGHTHAWKS INTERVIEW CONT'D

It was a thrill to audition for Sylvester Stallone. At that time he was very famous for “Rocky”, and he was pretty cute in my mind. I was so excited when I got the role and after the scene I was in was shot he invited me to view the department store blowing up, from right next to the camera. I was beside myself!

He invited me for lunch with about 20 other people and didn’t say a word to me during the meal but it was pretty cool. That was the extent of my relationship with Sly. My early brush with super fame!