Newsday from New York, New York • 77

rntrrif iif rn i im m'fv w.i'nw a mwi MOVIES Hopped Up Spy Spoof Falls Flat HUDSON HAWK. (R) Elaborate spy spoof featuring the world's greatest cat burglar." This Hawk" is a turkey. Bruce WMis, Danny Aiello, Andie MacDowel. Directed by Michael Lehmann. At area ttwatere.

On The Run With Thelma, Louise THELMA AMD LOUISE (R). Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon are great fun as two Arkansas women whose getaway vacation turns kilo a iterating cross-country flight from the law. BuMhe heavy-handed direction of Ridley Scott undermines the storys earnest intentions. WRh Harvey Keitel, Michael Madsen, Christopher McDonald and Brad PKL At area theaters. Susan Sarandon, left, and Geena Davis star in Thelma and Louise.

By Terry Kelleher STAFF WRITER ND TO THINK it all Btarted with a song. A decade ago, actor Bruce Willis befriended musician Robert Kraft and developed a particular fondness for a Kraft composition called The Hudson Hawk. They agreed it would be neat to make a movie with that title, which would serve as the catchy nickname fen- a cat burglar. Today, Hudson Hawk' opens nationwide. Willis is the star, Kraft is executive producer and the pals share story credit.

Of course, it takes money as well as time to make a dream come true. Estimates on this one run dose to $60 million. As the song dies away, does the phrase colossal waste strike a familiar note? Hudson Hawk quacks like Howard the Duck. Get ready for the biggest action-comedy bomb of the summer. Joel Silver, who produced the Willis vehicles Die Hard" and Die Hard 2, deserves the more impressive title of overproducer" for filling Hudson Hawk" with superfluous, sense-numbing special effects and allowing director Michael Lehmann to shoot in Rome, Budapest and London (in addition to New York and Hollywood).

Strangely, the story has nothing to do with Budapest or London. Maybe Silver booked a package tour. Those who saw Heathers or Meet the Applegates will certify that Leh- Please Bee HAWK on Page 78 At the start, when Louise, a fed-up and restless waitress, talks her into slipping away from her oppressive beer-bellied husband (Christopher McDonald), Thelma is the passive one and Louise the aggressor. But as soon as they hit the road and get a taste of freedom, theres no taming Thelma, and no turning back for either of them. Through all the craziness that occurs on the road, the hustlers and hayseeda they meet, the jams they get themselves into but not quite out of, the women come to know themselves in a way that makes it clear they could never go back to their old lives.

At the same time, there is nothing to prepare us for the films jolting ending. There have been many occasions where European directors have managed to capture quirky American life better than most American directors Michael Apteds Coal Miner's Daughter, Louise Malles Atlantic City come to mind but Thelma and Louise is one case where the right idea and the right actors came together with the wrong director. II and toward its own characters. Thelma and Louise is intended, most of the time, as a serious drama about two Arkansas women who slip away for an impromptu break from their humdrum lives and end up being chased across the Great Southwest by scores of police. Its hard to believe that two women, even two aa simple and unsophisticated as Thelma and Louise, would panic and head for Mexico after hooting a man who was furiously raping one of them, and there is one recurring character a cretinous, tongue-flicking truck driver so absurdly over the top that he stops the movie in its tracks.

When the women finally atop him in his tracks, Thelma and Louise becomes less a road movie than a Roadrunner cartoon. If Scott was just after comic relief, I would have thought hia casting of Harvey Keitel aa a cop with a southern drawl might have been enough. There is, however, much to savor in the performances of Davis and Sarandon. The actresses share screen time equally, but Davis' loopy, quickly unhinged Thelma gives the film its most exhilarating lifts. By Jack Mathews STAR WHITES IG ROLES for actresses are bo rare these days that you may be able to forgive Thelma and Louise its story weaknesses and Ridley Scotts obtrusive direction.

I couldnt. Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon, Thelma and Louise respectively, are two of the most interesting actors of either gender around, and it will be hard to find two better performances this year. Theres also a great idea driving thia first script by Callie Khouri; after enduring countless male-bonded buddy movies, its refreshing to spend time on the road with a couple of spirited women. But Scott, a British director more adept at the kind of design flourishes we saw in Blade Runner and Alien than in developing believable, recognizable characters, apparently didnt have enough faith in either the idea nr the actresses to let the story develop naturally, or to allow its plain feminist views to emerge without aiming narrative arrows at them. Most troubling is the movie's condescending tone toward its audience, PART II NY NEW YORK NEWSDAY.

FRIDAY MAY 24, 1391 A Night in the City With 4 Bronx Kids NAMIH am IKE MOMENTS (R) Mowing four mtod-up kids from the Bronx on a night on lbs town. They've probably had Mur mrangs. a ninny! nwni maioBn non oy witar-drector Joseph A Vasquez. WMi Doug E. Doug, Nestor Serrano, Mario Joyner and John Legubamo.

At area heaters. (Nestor Serrano), a low-rent Lothario, also is Hispanic, hut dont tell him that. And, by the way, he would rather be called Vinnie. Two African-American homeboys complete the quartet. Tom (Mario Joyner) is an aspiring actor now selling magazine subscriptions by phone.

His only credit of note is almost being tapped for the part of a waiter in Rain Man. Willie (Doug E. Doug) has no means of support and blames everyone, white and black alike, for keeping him down because of race. Archtype City, for sure. And when they head out together for a Night of Nights on the town together, you just know each of them will face some stark revelation and or epiphany.

Sure enough, everything that can happen to four high-strung guys heading into Manhattan in an old car starts happening almost immediately. (It will spoil nothing. Im sure, to tell you the car doesnt last the night.) Trouble with women, trouble with transit cops, trouble money and, trouble with each other dominates the proceedings. And yet aa predictable as its basic framework might be, Hangin With the Homeboys nonetheless is among the freshest items in the movie marketplace by virtue of its freewheeling and level-headed view of relations between races. What in most movies would be treated with heavy hands and weepy eyes Vinnie Fernandos self-hatred, fen instance, or Willies haphazard self-destruction is treated here as having both tragic and comic characteristics.

In short, Vasquez says, what those on the outside of this milieu call Socio-Political Dysfunction (or words to that effect) is, to those on the inside, just another way of Getting Through Life. Sometimes Vasquez gets a little carried away. Johnnys encounter with a beautiful college girl (Mary B. Ward) who tells him about the big beautiful world out there straddles the border of sappiness. But Vasquez open-hearted view toward his characters redeems 1 even the hoariest cliches of this other- wise engaging and admirablepddition to the guys-night-out sub-genre.

II Nestor Serrano, Mario Joyner and Doug E. Doug In Hangin By Gene Seymour STAFF WHITER NE WOULD BE tempted to call Hangin With the Horseboys the rebuttal to Bonfire of the Vanities (book, not movie) if the two were fairly matched in heart and humanity. One also would be tempted to oil Homeboys am updated version of Marty if the two were fairly matched in fresh insight and gritty truths. "Homeboys" has the dear advantage on all these counts. Which isnt to say that Joseph A.

Vasquez first film qualifies as something entirely new, under the sun. If youve seen American Graffiti, Igy High, br Diner jou sort of know what to expect from Hangin With the Homeboys once youre aware of who and what it involves. What we have here are four South Bronx buddies with little in common except their home turf. Johnny (John Leguizamo) is a sweet-natured, if somewhat anal-retentive Hispanic teenager has trouble making his mind about things like college. Fernando.