Hudson Hawk (1991)

Directed by Michael Lehmann. Starring Bruce Willis, Andie MacDowell, Danny Aiello, James Coburn, Richard E. Grant, Sandra Bernhard, Donald Burton, Lorrain Toussaint, Andrew Bryniarski, Leonardo Cimino, Don Harvey, David Caruso, Frank Stallone, (voice) William Conrad. [R]

Willis’ ego gets overfed in this bizarre, excess-drenched vanity project, which casts him as an expert cat burglar who’s fresh out of the joint when he’s blackmailed by various parties to undertake a series of heists for a handful of crystals that can be used in a Da Vinci machine to convert lead into gold. Features a butler (Burton) that wields arm-extending blades, Coburn at his martial-artsiest, MacDowell as a nun secret agent working for the Vatican who can apparently “speak dolphin,” and on and on. Everything is pitched at such a loud, belligerently idiosyncratic level that there’s no breathing room or grounded foil (it’s all just a pile-up of absurdity); roughly five percent of the jokes are reasonably humorous, while the rest toggle between groanworthy and inexplicable. Willis and cohort Aiello have a tendency to sing songs while they go about their capers because (apparently) this is supposed to be cute. Running jokes include Willis’ ability to parrot the running time of just about any popular song fed to him, and his inability to get his hands on a much-wanted cappuccino—again, because (apparently) this is supposed to be cute. Not as unwatchable as many insisted upon its release, but a baffling failure all the same. Co-storied by Willis, his only writing credit to date.

31/100