Popular reviews

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  Review by Tylot Lantern ★★★★ 1

  Criminally under-seen dark comedy that is very similar to ‘One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest’ except that both of the main characters spend the movie dying from a terminal illness.

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  Review by Matthew Noble ★★★★ 2

  "Suicide makes you sulky... all suicides are sulky. That's what it is: the ultimate sulk."

  Full disclosure: my own Dad passed away after a long battle with cancer, so I know what it's like to deal with terminal illness and palliative care. Therefore, I may have gone into Hawks with more emotional baggage than some people.

  As far as I know, cancer hadn't been the central focus of many Hollywood movies before 1988, so I imagine this weird British comedy may have filled a void upon its release (correct me if I'm wrong). Based on an idea by Bee Gee Barry Gibb - who also provides the soundtrack - Hawks is about two men with cancer, Timothy Dalton's Bancroft and…

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  Review by Mark Cunliffe 🇵🇸 ★★★½ 6

  A film featuring James Bond and Goose from Top Gun, written by the bloke who wrote Last of the Summer Wine, from an idea by a Bee Gee.

  As the current TV trails for Radio 4 has it, this is 'a curious bunch' indeed.

  Made between his two outing as 007, Hawks is an intriguing vehicle for Timothy Dalton that allows him to show off his comic chops almost twenty years before Hot Fuzz. He stars as Bancroft, a solicitor and patient on a cancer ward, who takes a fellow terminally ill sufferer, a former American football player Deckermensky (Anthony Edwards) under his wing with the philosophy that they must face death with honesty and humour. The normal rules should…

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  Review by holas79 ★★★★

  I never thought I'd enjoy the story of two terminally ill patients quite as much as this. I certainly made me run the gamut of emotions with lots of great, funny dialogue and really tender moments. Edwards, two years after mega-success Top Gun and Dalton, in between Bond outings both decide to do this quirky British comedy and they're both excellent in it. It starts oddly as Edwards attempts to drive Geoffrey Palmer off a cliff; a surprising way to introduce a lead character but once you understand the situation, it quickly settles down. Barry Gibb of the Bee Gees supplies some songs for this (including Diana Ross' Chain Reaction) which does age it somewhat, but that aside it's glorious stuff.

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  Review by jimmyjone ★★★ 1

  If I ever get cancer, I hope I handle it as well (and look as good) as Timothy Dalton. Janet McTeer steals this movie, though.

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  Review by CityGent ★ 23

  Christ almighty, this was unbearable. Timothy Dalton plays a man with cancer. Aside from hair loss, he's able bodied and his boundless energy. He lives in a hospital. He torments an American opposite. Why the American is in England is not explained. He lives in the hospital too. In the opening scene he was test driving a sports car. Next thing, he's lost virtually all the use of his legs, through a football accident.

  This is the absolute pits. It's a crap movie made in Britain, with mostly British actors, written by a Brit, but directed by an American and US financed. That's always a recipe for disaster.

  Hey guys, see how wacky the Brits are on the other side…

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  Review by Eoghan Lyng Lyng ★★★★

  Barry Gibb of the Bee Gees, who penned the coruscating song Stayin’ Alive, found himself in his very own moral compass as he discussed the precariousness of life with David English. Conceiving their own solutions to delightful non-permanence, Gibb and English asked writer Roy Clarke to compose his own percipient elegy, one lead star Timothy Dalton boasted was the greatest script he’d ever read. It was a cancer comedy, an odd collocation of terms in 1988, yet holds up nicely in an age where a millennial indie comedy is often more spear-like than slapstick. Much like the book-ending Bond films that coincided with this expose, Dalton’s performance in the sombre Hawks would prove decades ahead of its time. There is…

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  Review by Chris Browning ★★

  Well this is an oddity. Writteb by Roy Clarke from an idea by... Barry Gibb, starring just pre-Bond Timothy Dalton and presumably pre-Miracle Mile Anthony Edwards and a supporting cast of very British actors. It’s weird hearing full on Clarke dialogue, with its tell tale northern rhythms, cadences and eccentricities from non Clarke actors and the whole thing ends up a stodgy mess, with a deeply uncomfortable Dalton and Edwards not really sharing any chemistry. Thank god for Coduri and McTeer who absolutely steal the film, especially the latter who has a role that isn’t her usual style but she absolutely makes her own, giving her character drive and emotional depth the script really lacks. A weird film, but not wholly terrible

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  Review by Dmitry_Karpyuk ★★½

  Практически предтеча "Достучаться до небес", глуповатая и по нынешним меркам крайне шовинистическая трагикомедия про двух раковых больных, англичанина и американца, сбежавших из английской клиники в Амстердам к проституткам. Энтони Эдвардс играет в своей обычной манере и не раздражает, а вот Далтон, вписавшийся сюда аккурат между двумя фильмами бондианы, довольно сильно переигрывает в попытке выдать эдакого МакМёрфи. С другой стороны, он говорил, что получил много писем с благодарностями от реальных больных и их родственников – значит, всё было не зря. Идея, кстати, принадлежит единственному живому на сегодняшний день Гиббу из Bee Gees, Барри; он же написал к фильму музыку.

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  Review by biz ★★★★ 1

  Carrying on my odd theme of hawks from last week, but God, this is an odd one. A thoroughly confounding cocktail of emotions for so early in the morning.
   
  I enjoyed it, in the end. It was a fun time, which I value greatly. I knew next to nothing about it going in, and was worried at the start but the film found its stride and became a beautiful, sad and hilarious kind of mess. A touch cliché, but heartwarming and darkly humorous. I’m not sure I could ever watch it again, but we’ll see. I’m definitely glad to have seen it.

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  Review by Tellingyou ★★★★★

  Top performances lead by an all star cast.

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  Review by Yougotgremlins ★★★★★

  Hawks is a great movie about two terminally ill men who escape from hospital and go on vacation to Amsterdam for one final adventure. Oh and The Bucket List 100% ripped this off.