Hawk Jones (Anniversary Edition DVD Review)

Is Hawk Jones a Hidden Treasure or Dumpster Fire?

DVD Distributed By: Lowry Brothers

HAWK JONES – One of the classic cult movies to come out of the 1980s is finally available on DVD! ‘Hawk Jones’ is one of the only movies ever made that has an all child cast! With an average age of 8 you won’t believe what happens in this movie! The local gangster, Antonio Coppola, is threatening to take over the entire town of Minitropolis. Antonio and his gang of henchmen are causing destruction everywhere; turning the once quiet town upside down.

That’s when Hawk Jones comes to town! It’s Hawk against Antonio and his army of gangsters. Hawk is determined to rid the town of Antonio and his henchmen; but it won’t be easy. Antonio’s influences reach everywhere, including the police department. Hawk is soon under attack from his own Chief of Police! The Chief teams Hawk up with a partner who does her best to cause problems for him!

In this hilarious, politically incorrect movie, you never know what’s going to happen next. From the very first moment this is one movie you will never forget!

Terrible Father Commentary

https://open.spotify.com/episode/6VFMMro5ObfgDx0sLqPh8H

Trashmen Discussion

Jimbo: Hello boys. Another round of applause to Craig for a great movie selection and for fighting the flu. Hope Craig is feeling better. He performed better than I would. If I had the flu, you wouldn’t even hear from me.

As a collector of oddball and cult films I’d consider buying this DVD, but it’s not a slam dunk. In order for this to be a must own, I would need interviews or a documentary about the making of the film. Visits to film locations. A “where are they now?” featurette. As it currently stands, I believe the DVD only includes two versions of the film – original and “anniversary” edition. But I don’t think I’m curious enough to spend $20+ for the DVD.

Jamie: Is the only thing on the DVD two versions? Nothing else?

Jimbo: I believe so. Obviously the movie’s hook is what appealed to me – An all exclusive use of children in place of adult actors. This is an intriguing idea and the one detail that got me most excited about the movie experience.

And considering Richard and Tor Lowry were teenagers at the time of production (According to their website), I thought the directing and writing was decent and capable. Certainly better than a lot of other independent features shot on VHS in the 80s!

However, if you strip away the gimmick and cast normal adult actors, the film proves to be a pretty boring police procedural. The movie is not extreme or outrageous enough for adult audiences. You don’t have kids dropping F-bombs, nor is there any excessive violence that would draw mainstream crowds to an action-cop movie. This isn’t Beverly Hills Cop starring kids.

Jamie: Saturday morning as I was taking a huge shit I was on my phone and looked up online “Hawk Jones” and found some making of footage that I thought was interesting as the film makers (no way they were teenagers, they are in their early 20’s) had so much patience with the kids and also seemed to know what they were doing.

Jimbo: That video is a pretty good find. And that sounds like a pretty long shit.

North: The thought of Jamie blowing mud for so long that his legs go numb, requiring Michelle (his wife) to pull him off the shitter is not humorous in the least. The last part I might have made up.

Jamie: I didn’t shit for that long but my legs did fall asleep as I did watch it for quite some time.

Jimbo: I was absolutely amazed at the production value in Hawk Jones. Fancy cars, mansions, children wearing fitted suits, airplanes, crane shots, aerial shots, etc. If there was a budget why was it shot on video? But if there was no budget, how did they pull in all of these resources? As I watched the movie, I spent a lot of time wondering about production aspects that had nothing to do with the movie itself. Did the parents buy the kid’s clothing in trade for them being cast in a movie? How did the brother’s convince so many parents/children to be involved? I was spending more time thinking about these things instead of just enjoying the movie.

Jamie: The mothers of Valiant (Hawk Jones) and the girl didn’t appear to be rich or stylish, they looked like normal young women so unless I am wrong, I assume these film makers raised the money somehow. A grant maybe? I agree I would be curious.

North: Remember, in the 80s even kids looked older, so they might actually have been teens and just looked 20s. Ahhhh, and toy guns that looked like real guns. Those were the days.

Jimbo: So the film is made for kids, right? That’s what they claim. But the anniversary edition made use of digital gunshots and blood effects, so not really. Although my boys (Bruce and Beau) have seen worse in a Marvel film so I wouldn’t be afraid to show them this. In terms of tone, there are a few slapstick gags, but not nearly enough potty humor to keep my boys entertained throughout. I liken it to the same problem with short films being stretched out into features. Hawk Jones works better in the final 30 minutes. There’s a ton of action, goofy action tropes, and the pacing is good. But the first hour prior is pretty average.

Jamie: Yeah I wouldn’t watch it ever again. It’s a one joke concept and after the 20 minute mark or so, you know what you are in for. Aside from boxes hitting kids on the head or fake scars falling down the kids face, there wasn’t much going for it that I found entertaining enough to watch again. I do like fast motion but I’m also one of the few that finds that absolutely hilarious.

North: For me the test was what to do with my video file. I looked at it for a second, thinking “will I ever watch this again? Should I burn it to DVD?” I hit DELETE instead.

Jimbo: Then again, this movie doesn’t over promise anything. My disappointment comes from my hopes and expectations rather than what the movie actually is. Hawk Jones promised a 1980s style cop film starring an all child cast. And that it delivers. It’s probably not fair to judge Hawk Jones in “normal” terms, because it certainly is not normal. But ultimately I feel it’s too dull for adults, and I doubt it’s goofy enough for kids. It’s somewhere right down the middle where it misses both audiences.

Jimbo: I noticed the behind the scenes footage video had a screen burn-in that said jeffcarneyfilms.com. Jeff Carney is the director of that Autopsy of the Dead doc I picked up at Cinema Wasteland.

Jamie: Did you ever finish watching that doc?

Jimbo: I did finish Autopsy of the Dead. It’s interesting to hear stories from a lot of the fringe people involved in Night of the Living Dead. Might be a good film for us to watch later…

Anyway, I did a little more digging and found this page from Jeff Carney’s website. http://www.jeffcarneyfilms.com/hawk-jones.html

It answers a lot of the questions that we had while screening the film. Jeff describes Hawk Jones as a cop/comedy “spoof”. He also mentions that they had a $75,000 budget and chose to shoot and edit on 3/4″ tape stock. There were about 100 kids cast in the film, and I confirmed that the director was 22 years old when they shot Hawk Jones. My next logical questions is, how did a couple of 20 somethings raise $75,000? Nest egg? Rich uncle?

North: Not that this is going to help, but if you adjust for inflation, that $75k becomes……..

$167,737.23

So either they had a wealthy family, or they found a really stupid bank to fund them.

Jimbo: Since Carney describes it as a “spoof”, can you think of a movie that is the adult counterpart to Hawk Jones? I’m having a hard time even thinking of a good PG cop movie, period. And that’s probably why this movie doesn’t work. There is no memorable, or decent cop movie under a PG-13 rating. Maybe Cop & a Half with Burt Reynolds, but that’s the only exception!

I’m waiting for Craig to chime in because I know he has an answer to this question.

Craig: Sorry, I have been trying to get rid of this sickness.

Jimbo: Glad you’re still breathing.

Craig: I don’t think that the rating has anything to do with the quality of the film. I mean, someone yelling FUCK can spice up a shitty film but it’s not the thing holding it back.

I guess if I had to (because I am cutting Hawk Jones a lot of slack – more than anyone else I think) I would say its biggest limitation is a lack of imagination. Beyond the fact that it’s got a kid cast it’s just a collection of the most obvious cop movie clichés with no real commentary beyond “hey, remember this thing? Well here it is”. You could use the child cast to maybe say something about the inherent immaturity of ‘adult’ police films maybe (Nick Nolte and Eddie Murphy acting like goddamn children in 48hrs). That’s my 2 cents.

Jimbo: Yeah, maybe I’m over thinking the movie. I’m still not sure who this movie is for. Is it a kids movie? I do want to see if it can hold the attention of my boys. Have them tell me if they like it. If so, I’ll take back most of my criticisms.

How did you learn about Hawk Jones?

Craig: I don’t remember where I heard about it. I did buy the DVD from the director’s website because at the time it seemed like the best way to see the film. And the money went to the filmmakers so it didn’t seem like a bad deal. It wasn’t on Youtube and I didn’t want to put the legwork into tracking it down elsewhere. Someone’s got to bite the bullet for your dead asses anyway. That’s why I chose this film anyway, there can’t be too many reviews out there. Also, I just like having a large library of obscure films.

Jimbo: I agree that I have some unhealthy obsession with obtaining strange films and being able to point at them on a movie shelf.

Craig: The two things that appealed to me originally were the all child cast (obviously-that’s its main selling point) and the apparent cheapness of the production. Cheapness usually goes hand in hand with strangeness, so I tend to seek that out.

My biggest complaint is that I don’t think they push the production enough past a generic collection of cop movie clichés into something more. There could have been something here really great and strange, maybe capturing the silliness of Hollywood films with the ramshackle logic of kids playing in the backyard with the energy of young people running around with camcorders goofing off. Instead it just becomes ‘hey remember that one movie? Here it is only with kids’.

Jimbo: Except I don’t know what movie they’re spoofing, or I’m supposed to remember. Like you said, it’s a pretty generic collection of cop movie cliches. Maybe a remake is in order?

Craig: You couldn’t make something like this, guns or not, and get it distributed at all today.

Jimbo: The final test will be what my kids think, but I can’t recommend this film. Only the most adventurous movie watchers may be interested. And those people will seek out this film despite what we say. If the boys like it, I may buy the DVD for our collection. Anyway, thanks for “biting the bullet” for us “dead asses”.