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NIGHTHAWKS Directed by Bruce Malmuth Screenplay by David Shaber

What a lot of questions Nighthawks raises!

> How does a terrorist, freshly arrived in New York, a city where he has never worked before, alone and apparently unaided, acquire, within a day, a suitcase full of hand grenades and other deadly weapons? Most people, after all, have trouble finding Fifth Avenue their first day in town.

> How does this same man (Rutger Hauer) single out of the huge team of police pursuing him the one man, a fellow called Deke, who poses a deadly threat to him and then acquire a detailed dossier on him? Granted, Deke is played by sullen Sylvester Stallone, who tends to stand out in a crowd. Still, Deke has a moody, unexplained thing about not wanting to shoot anyone, so it is strange that the terrorist decides to become obsessed with him.

> But then, you have to wonder a little bit about the man with the satchel of explosives. If he is so smart, why does he leave, where any dumb flatfoot can find it, a map with one of his targets circled on it in red?

> Since all concerned here are obviously up to date on the latest advances in crime and crime fighting, why is it that the only thing they can think to do when they want to sneak up close to their prey is put on a dress? This happens three times in Nighthawks, which is surely twice too often unless they are trying to make some tiresome point about the unacknowledged sexual preferences of excessively masculine types.

If specific answers to these queries prove elusive, there is one overriding response to all of them: this film is a fairly typical example of the new incoherence in movies. Especially in the action genre, simple logic--let alone good craftsmanship--is no longer considered a requisite for the audience's pleasure. The theory seems to be that if the characters run around enough, encountering in their hasty passages sufficient amounts of shocking behavior, no one will notice that the story makes no sense. A simpler way of saying this is "What's good enough for television is good enough for us."

But Nighthawks is so moronically written and directed, so entirely without wit or novelty, that there is plenty of time to wonder about its many missing explanations. Also missing is the leading lady --Lindsay Wagner, who is supposed to be Deke's beloved but has only two brief scenes. Also absent are the charm and style Billy Dee Williams might have brought to his role as Deke's partner.

Somehow they forgot to write a character for him to play. But that's all right --audiences can return the contempt with which Nighthawks was made by forgetting to go see it. --R.S.

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