Nighthawks

This is one of a legion of today's cheap-but-still-pretty-enough-to-watch movies we see today, thanks completely to the most affordable video and computer production technology in the history of cinema. It COULD have been so many things, including a major hollywood film. All it needed was better writing, better direction, better pacing through editing, much better acting, more money to use more cameras to capture more coverage. I say that because this has many half-buried nuggets of quality -- in the dialogue, in the setups, even in the plot ideas. But none of them pay off. Only one actor can act well -- the lead actor. But in the bigger world, he's nothing more than a pretty face in a sea of pretty faces with bodies of underwear models.

Nighthawks as its namesake reminds me of a 1942 oil on canvas painting by Edward Hopper with the same title that portrays people in a downtown diner late at night as viewed through the diner's large glass. They are urban birds of prey taking justice on their hands in drama suspense game of predator versus prey.

This movie is a gosh darn masterpiece. It will chill you to the bone, and it will make you shed a tear. This movie will stay with you long after the credits are over.