Review of Nighthawks (1981) by Stefan G — 28 Oct 2015

This buddy cop feature appears to be banking on Rambo and Lando making for good leads, and although this isn't a very original film, it works as an action film that isn't completely mindless. To be honest, the film does seem like it might have been a bit retrograde for its time (it often comes across as a mid-70's film despite it being made in 1981), though I never thought of that as necessarily a bad thing.

As one could expect from almost any action film, the film's story isn't much, but at the very least it works. The acting is pretty good, and there's quite a bit more personality flourishing in the film's cast than I thought there would be.

One scene in the film shows Stallone's character arguing with the lead inspector over violence the nature of the police officer in a near complete reversal of the Dirty Harry scenario, where the main character's superior is the one who's eager to resort to violence.

The film's overall style is a bit like watching an episode of Kojak if the production values were upgraded significantly, complete with the funky soundtrack and somewhat bleak city look. Although it's not quite as much action scenes as it might have needed, it's an effective action-thriller that, at the very least, passes as pure entertainment.