the marketers of hudson hawk obviously have a lot more talent than the filmmakers . misguided and miscalculated on every conceivable level , hudson hawk is the most lame-brained , stupefyingly awful movie to have come around in a long time . director michael lehmann ( heathers ) has taken a promising idea and turned it into a mind-boggling misfire , a sorry spectacle of a film that even the most die hard bruce willis fans will abhor . the movie's wooden and empty-headed plot revolves around master cat burglar eddie " hudson hawk , " played by willis . he's hired to steal three priceless da vinci artifacts by a variety of odious villains -- the mario brothers , george kaplan and the candy bars , and a pair of kinky and colorful miscreants , darwin and minerva mayflower ( played to the hilt by richard e . grant and sandra bernhard ) . the plan is to unlock the secrets of leonardo's puzzle , three rubik's cube-like crystals which , when put together correctly , are said to provide instant wealth and gratification . pity the same couldn't be said of the film . the hawk is aided and abetted by long time partner-in-crime and confidante tommy five-tone ( danny aiello of do the right thing ) . they get to perform a couple of gratuitously surreal musical numbers together , which shows you just how low this film will sink in order to get a laugh . andie macdowell ( sex , lies and videotape ) plays willis' love interest , anna baragli . lovely , yes , but interesting ? not in this movie . you know where the film's heading when it manages to poke fun at asians , the handicapped and overweight people all within the first five minutes . by its long overdue conclusion , everyone else in between -- including the audience -- has been insulted . the best thing in the film are the mayflowers , who resemble characters in a john waters movie . bernhard has a field day in her role as minerva , a garishly outfitted , rubber-faced dominatrix who gets off on psychologically ridiculing the mawkish hawk . her performance is hideously over the top , but that's what makes it all the more fun to watch . and grant's despotic darwin delivers what few funny lines there are in the film . waters , the director of such sleazoid epics as pink flamingos and polyester , has said that bad taste is what entertainment is all about . but in hudson hawk , lehmann abuses the privilege . apparently the film had more than its fair share of production problems , discernible from the opening credits . willis -- who must take a large part of the blame for this embarrassment -- co-wrote the story with executive producer robert kraft . kraft , in turn , shares screen credit with composer michael kamen ( die hard and the " lethal weapon " series ) . kamen was supposedly still working on the score days before the film was released . and it shows . the sound , too , is so bad you can't often hear what the characters are saying . and the film is poorly edited -- some snatches of footage are so short you're not quite sure what you are supposed to have seen . all this in a movie reputed to have cost upwards of $75 million ! 
