Quilty pleasure of mine Nighthawks (1981) is Sylvester Stallone's most underrated terrorist action-thriller flick of the 80's and of course it is my favorite film from Sly. Stallone is my favorite action star and I love his work, I honestly think he is better actor than fat pig Arnold! I admit I have never seen this film before, I wasn't interested in the film, but since I am Stallone fan I decide to give it a chance and I wasn't disappointed. Last month I purchased this film on Blu-ray disc and bought it this week in Tuesday. Watching it today for the first time I was blown away with how Stallone was such a talent playing a police officer against terrorists. Stallone is Dirty Harry not Eastwood. The movie is an 80's typical action-thriller and that a good one. I love this movie, I love it. I never seen Rebel, The Lords of Flatbush, F.I.S.T and Paradise Alley yet and I don't think I am going to ever watch them.Like I said I love Nighthawks it is an 80's action-thriller flick about an undercover street cop Deke DaSilva (Stallone) ex Vietnam vet who agrees to terminate an international terrorist Wulfgar (Rutger Hauer) who has demanded media attention. But DaSilva's "at-home" tactics are very much put to the challenge.The film was directed by Bruce Malmuth who later directed Steven Seagal's Hard to Kill (1990) and Dolph Lundgren's Pentathlon (1995) the director died in 2005 and it is no longer with us anymore. R.I.P. I miss you and I love your work. Beside Sylvester Stallone stars: Billy Dee Williams, Rutger Hauer, Lindsay Wagner, Persis Khambatta, Nigel Davenport. Everyone of the actors did a an excellent job playing their characters.Lindsay Wagner from The Bionic Woman series is in this movie and she is shot. Persis Khambatta is so sexy, gorgeous and beautiful in this movie that I really feel bad that she died and is no longer with us anymore. Se past away in 1998. R.I.P.My absolute favorite Stallone film. It is very underrated movie which really was way ahead of its time with the plot, and I personally think that it has some of Stallone's and Hauer's best acting performances. The movie lost some of the scenes between Sly and Wagner were for the best, because of pacing. Like Rocky IV, originally this movie was almost two and a half hours long, which is around 50 minutes longer than the final cut.Yeah it sucks that there never was uncut version of it, specially because special effects legend Dick Smith made some really grisly gore effects for this film, like animatronic head of Rutger Hauer which exploded when he gets shot, but we'll never get to see all his removed work.I love the action in this movie, I thought it was more shot in 70's and It reminds me on Clint Eastwood's The Enforcer and of course Charles Bronson's Death Wish since the movie was set in New York and I don't think it is a bad one. We have a lot of blood squibs, we have a great babes in it like Lindsay Wagner and Persis Khambatta. Stallone's character is likable and great. He beat's a mugger dressed as a woman and drags him hand cuffed to the station. Sly kill's terrorist on the end. I really miss movies from the 80's today like are this one. I think this movie is miles way better than Chuck Norris's The Delta Force. This was the third collaboration between Sylvester Stallone and Joe Spinell before this movie, they both worked together on Rocky I and II. I heard that Joe had problems with drugs and Stallone avoid him.Rutger Hauer stole the show and he stole the movie I love how Sly and Rutger brilliantly plays and portrays their characters and yes this movie is entertaining and fast paced it goes quickly around. I enjoy the ending no really in which Stallone is a decoy and you think it is Lindsay Wagner, Sly shot's and kills Wulfgar. I really think Sly and Billy De Williams did worked perfectly together as pair of cops. I also think Bruce Malmuth did a good job directing it. My favorite scenes are in which Stallone's saves a baby by a wire in the elevator and we see a real helicopter and a real practical stunts, no CGI, no shaky cam it is a real Hard-R action fight scenes. Stallone saves all the hostages in front the bus and of curse Chuck Norris couldn't have done better.The rating I give to this film is 10. Anything under 7 would be ridiculous, as anyone claiming this isn't at least a GOOD action film (it is sure as hell better than all the new action movies today.) It is a good cat-mouse action-thriller and I enjoy it I love it.Nighthawks is a 1981 American action-thriller film directed by Bruce Malmuth and starring Sylvester Stallone, Rutger Hauer, Billy Dee Williams, Lindsay Wagner, Persis Khambatta and Nigel Davenport. Its score was composed by Keith Emerson. The film was noted for production problems.10/10 Grade: Bad Ass Seal Of Approval Studio: Universal Pictures Starring: Sylvester Stallone, Billy Dee Williams, Rutger Hauer, Lindsay Wagner, Persis Khambatta, Nigel Davenport Director: Bruce Malmuth Producer: Martin Poll Screenplay: David Shaber Story by David Shaber, Paul Sylbert Rated: R Running Time: 1 Hr. 39 Mins. Budget: $5.000.000 Box Office: $19,900,000

"Night Hawks" is an uncompromising, slam-bang action thriller about a couple of street-wise New York cops called Deke DaSilva (Sylvester Stallone) and Matthew Fox (Billy Dee Williams) who are assigned to a special anti-terrorism unit. The main man they are after is a ruthless international terrorist called Wulfgar (Rutger Hauer) who is now believed to be in New York City, after undergoing plastic surgery. That's the first problem that DaSilva and Fox are up against - they don't even know what Wulfgar really looks like now! There are some terrific action scenes in this movie such as the thrilling chase sequence on the New York subway and a nail-biting sequence when Wulfgar and his female partner-in-crime, Shakka, hi- jack a cable car full of VIPs. The excellent cast also includes Joe Spinell as DaSilva's harassed boss, Nigel Davenport as an anti- terrorism expert, and the original bionic woman, Lyndsay Wagner, as Mrs. DaSilva.The acting is also worth mentioning here as well. Stallone himself, leads the cast very well throughout, doing an all around excellent portrayal of main protagonist and NYC cop Deke DaSilva, giving in my opinion one of his absolute best and most underrated performances ever. He really makes DaSilva a very tough, and gritty NYC cop who also has principles and morals, and stays true to who he is, and he goes after crime so intensely and fiercely especially during his pursuit of Wulfgar, and the animosity between those two characters is what really drives the film forward, and that electrifying, psychological edge that they both work off of each other just makes it so compelling. You also got Billy Dee Williams who plays DaSilva's partner Sergeant Matthew Fox who also does an excellent job holding his own throughout the film, and he can be a solid, and very serious cop when business picks up, but he also can be light hearted at certain moments as well. We also have Lindsay Wagner who plays Deke's ex-wife Irene, and of course Persis Khambatta playing Wulfgar's associate Shakka Holland, and also Nigel Davenport is also solid as the British Interpol agent Peter Hartman as well.Rutger Hauer meanwhile, really steals the show here with his cool, yet very chilling performance as Wulfgar. He brings such a nice, cold, and calculating sophistication to this international terrorist who is a firm believer in what he's doing, and what makes Wulfgar more immensely dangerous is that he's not just a random hired gun who does it for money, but he believes in the causes that he's fighting for. There's no question whatsoever that he really has that intensely dangerous, and psychological mind-game that he has going on throughout the film when he get entangled with DaSilva, it suddenly turns into a cat-and- mouse game of wits between the two, and the tension and suspense just builds throughout.Overall rating: 8 out of 10.

Stallone is no slouch in "Nighthawks", but even I'll admit that part of the movie's appeal is watching him be upstaged by Rutger Hauer. That guy's all sorts of menacing. Even so, the two men are what make this movie really work, bringing international terrorism head to head with gritty cop drama. This makes good use of New York locations to that end, and it's kinda like Stallone's "The French Connection". It's a surprisingly entertaining movie, still packs a punch, and the tense tram standoff in the third act keeps the blood pumping 'til the very end.8/10

This would be a routine action film, except for the way women function rather perversely in this movie. Sylvester Stallone, who plays a cop, has two women in his life. The first is his ex-wife. The second is Stallone himself, when he dresses up like a woman in order to lure muggers to attack him. It is pretty funny watching him chase a bad guy while wearing a dress.Rutger Hauer plays a terrorist who has a female accomplice. In the opening scene, set in England, he compliments a woman selling perfume in a department store while he slips a bomb under the counter, blowing up her and lots of others moments later. Then he comes to New York and picks up a woman in a bar to shack up with while he plots his next attack. When she discovers what he is, he kills her, which is ironic, since he jokingly referred to himself as a lady killer earlier. Then he takes a bunch of hostages on a tram, killing one woman and dropping her body into the river just to show he means business.When Stallone foils this plot, Hauer decides to get even by killing Stallone's ex-wife. He slips into her apartment while she is washing the dishes. He pulls out his knife and sneaks into the kitchen behind her. Then, just when he is about to stab her, she turns around and we see that it is not her after all. It is Stallone in drag again, and he puts a couple of rounds into one stunned and bewildered terrorist.