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Just for fun, as we wait for the Thursday Creed box office figures, here are my picks for my five favorite Sylvester Stallone films. But the catch is that none of these films involve either Rocky Balboa or John Rambo, because that would be too easy. So yeah, by default, these won’t necessarily be his most successful films but nor will all of them be so-called flops either. With one obvious exception, you might argue that some of these are underrated as well, which explains my fifth choice as it’s a film I like to defend when the occasion presents itself. And in order of release date, here we go…
Nighthawks (1981):
Consider this the best Stallone film you’ve probably never seen.  It’s also, all things considered, his first action movie. And it’s worth noting that Stallone didn’t immediately start out as a would-be action hero but rather slowly morphed into one as his Rocky franchise grew more fantastical and he found a second franchise when Johnny Rambo became “Rambo.” It was also originally planned as a third French Connection movie before being reworked into an original project. Considering the behind-the-scenes scuffles that went on during and after production (the film was heavily edited this way and that by Universal, by Stallone, and by the MPAA for violence issues), it’s remarkable that it remains a solid action movie.
Aside from being well ahead of its time in terms of its subject matter, this tense and frankly terrific action thriller involving a European terrorist in New York City serves as a preemptive rebuttal to the more overtly fascist ideology found in Cobra and perhaps wrongly found in Stallone’s Rambo sequels (they are more complicated than you think, but I digress).  This is actually Stallone’s first time playing a cop (something he only did twice more in the 1980′s, in Cobra and Tango and Cash) and he is far from the prototypical hard-ass movie cop who will bend any rule to get the job done.
He is actually a by-the-book police officer,  explicitly stating at one point that he did not become a cop in order to hurt people.  He is repulsed by the methods proposed by the anti-terrorism INTERPOL agent (Nigel Davenport) and wants little to do with an operation that sees the rule of law as an inconvenience.  Rutger Hauer is superb in his US debut as the lead terrorist, as he is loosely based on the notorious Carlos the Jackal. I would argue that is he is among the earliest examples of a somewhat colorful and charismatic villain for this kind of action picture, paving the way for Hans Gruber in Die Hard and every scene-stealing baddie that followed.
The violence is both potent and somewhat restrained (several murders happen entirely off-screen, with much of it neutered by the MPAA), and even the climactic carnage is treated not as catharsis but as a tragedy. In a genre where the hero is defined by how little regard he has for the rules and/or the authority he serves, Stallone’s DaSilva stands out as a cop who desperately wants to follow the rules and who believes that due process trumps the temporary emergency that terrorism represents. It’s also a terrific action thriller. Yet like almost every Stallone film from 1976 to 1985 that didn’t involve his marquee characters, this Stallone action-er was a disappointment. Although, at a cost of around $5 million, it’s eventual $19.9m worldwide total qualifies as “not a disaster.”
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