Plot
Eddie "Hudson Hawk" Hawkins (Bruce Willis) — "Hudson Hawk" is an expression that refers to the often bracing winds off of the Hudson river — is a master burglar and safe-cracker, attempting to celebrate his first day of parole from prison with a cappuccino. Before he can get it, he is blackmailed by various entities, including his own parole officer, a minor Newark Mafia family headed by the Mario brothers (a reference to Nintendo's Mario Bros.), and the CIA into doing several dangerous art heists with his singing partner in crime, Tommy "Five-Tone" Messina (Danny Aiello).
The holders of the puppet strings turn out to be a "psychotic American corporation," Mayflower Industries, run by husband and wife Darwin (Richard E. Grant) and Minerva Mayflower (Sandra Bernhard) and a blade-slinging butler, Alfred (Donald Burton). The company, headquartered in the Esposizione Universale Roma (E.U.R.) in Rome, seeks to take over the world by reconstructing "La Macchina dell'Oro", a machine purportedly invented by Leonardo da Vinci (Stefano Molinari) which converts lead into gold. A special assembly of crystals needed for the machine to function are hidden in a variety of Leonardo's artworks: the maquette of the Sforza, the Da Vinci Codex, and a scale model of DaVinci's helicopter design. Sister Anna Baragli (Andie MacDowell) is an operative for a secretive Vatican counter-espionage agency, which has arranged with the CIA to assist in the Roman portion of Hawk's mission, though apparently intending all along to foil the robbery at St. Peter's Basilica.
Throughout the adventure, Hudson is foiled in repeated attempts to drink a cappuccino. After blowing up an auctioneer to cover up the theft of the Sforza, the Mario Bros. take Hawk away inside an ambulance, but when Hawk sticks needles into Antony Mario's face they try to run him down (as the stretcher Hawk is on falls out of the ambulance as it speeds along the highway), but are both killed when their driver crashes the ambulance due to the needles in Antony's face. Immediately afterwards, Hawk meets CIA head George Kaplan (James Coburn) and his CIA agents: Snickers (Don Harvey), Kit Kat (David Caruso), Almond Joy (Lorraine Toussaint), and Butterfinger (Andrew Bryniarski), who take him to Darwin and Minerva Mayflower. Hawk successfully steals the Da Vinci Codex from another museum, but eventually refuses to steal the helicopter design, and Tommy Five-Tone fakes his death so they can escape. However, they are found and attacked by the CIA Agents. Kit Kat and Butterfinger take Anna to the castle. Tommy trips Snickers, causing his bomb launcher to shoot a bomb onto his head. Hudson and Tommy escape while Snickers and Almond Joy are killed when the bomb goes off.
The film culminates in a showdown at Leonardo's castle, between the remaining CIA agents, the Mayflowers, and the team of Hudson, Five-Tone, and Baragli, to stop the Mayflowers from successfully operating the machine, during which Kit Kat and Butterfingers are betrayed and killed by Minerva. Tommy fights Darwin and Alfred inside Darwin's limo, while Hudson fights George Kaplan on the roof, and knocks him on top of the limo. Alfred, though wounded, jumps out of the limo with Darwin and plants a bomb on it, with Tommy trapped inside and George on the hood, and it explodes just as it falls over a cliff. Darwin and Minerva force Hawk to put together the crystal powering the machine, but Hawk intentionally leaves out one small piece. As a result, when the Mayflowers try the machine, it explodes and kills Minerva. In the battle that follows, Darwin is electrocuted and Hawk battles Alfred, and eventually decapitates him on his own blades. Hawk and Baragli escape the castle and discover that Tommy survived the crash due to airbags and sprinklers inside the limo. Hawk finally gets to enjoy a cappuccino.
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