Sylvester Stallone and Billy Dee Williams stand out in the 1981 crime drama 'Nighthawks.'
Crime cinema fundamentally changed throughout the 1970s. After decades of old-fashioned noir films, the New Hollywood era introduced a generation of darker, more realistic films that explored relevant social issues. Films like Chinatown, Dog Day Afternoon, Serpico, Mean Streets, and The French Connection took a more grounded approach to the time honored “cops and robbers” story. This wave of films felt like they could exist in reality.
These two genres intertwined in 1981 in Bruce Malmuth’s overlooked classic Nighthawks. The urban crime thriller took the best elements of the grounded 1970s films but explored them through the format of a buddy-cop story. It pinpoints a “passing of the torch” moment in cinema and doesn’t get enough credit for its historical value. Of all the things worth celebrating about Nighthawks, the cast stands out.
It's unfortunate that Stallone rarely returned to this type of role. He’s an actor that has range when he’s given the chance, but so often Stallone reverts to more generally heroic roles. What’s unique about Nighthawks is that while it’s still a relentless action movie, DaSilva is a flawed character. He is forced to acknowledge that even if he’s successful in finding Wulfgar, things won’t really change for him or the city. No matter what, there will still be dirty cops.
The concept of urban terrorism itself had not been addressed thoroughly in earlier films. Although Wulfgar’s tactics are extreme, they’re not implausible. The suspense in Nighthawks is actually a bit eerie. Wulfgar stages detonations at major metropolitan areas, killing many innocent civilians . When DaSilva finally kills him outside of Irene’s home, the audience breathes a sigh of relief rather than standing from their seat to cheer.
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