By Richard Lombardo
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Solid

Nighthawks is a 1980s cop movie.  It is dark and harsh, and completely without frills.  On a recent viewing I was impressed with how the way it deals with terrorism feels to me post 9/11.  I'm a New Yorker, I was in Manhattan the on September 11, 2001, and, like most New Yorkers, I know people that were in the World Trade Center, and know people who lost loved ones.  My feels surprised me.

The story is good, the plot moves along well and the acting is good - but all of this must be view through the glasses of the era and genre.  If your type of movie is Sense and Sensibility, you're not going to like it, as a matter of fact, you're not even going to read this review.

The fact that the movie is only ninety-nine minutes long tells you that it's fast.  The scene on the Tram (the Roosevelt Island Tramway - which connects Roosevelt Island neighborhoods with Manhattan, and the rest of the world) is a nail-biter, and poses situations that demand of you answers to very hard question.  Question that are very appropriate to the news at this writing (November 2005).  How do you deal with terrorists?  What are they capable of? 

Though I gave the film a Solid, I did so because this may not be the kind of film that you'll watch and rewatch and rewatch, because it's all there.  There isn't anything deep about it.  It is black and white, all on the surface.  But I highly recommend you view it as if I'd given it a HUGE rating, because I believe - and I'm not an emotional person, I am analytical by nature  - thinking about this subject in emotional terms, may be important to do.

All sociological testing aside, you'll enjoy the film if you like 80s action and grit: Well done on both counts.