 Eddie "Hudson Hawk" Hawkins (Bruce Willis)—"Hudson Hawk" is a nickname for the bracing winds off the Hudson River—is a master catburglar and safe-cracker, attempting to celebrate his first day of parole from prison with a cappuccino.Before he can get it, he is blackmailed by various entities, including his own parole officer, a minor Mafia family headed by the Mario Brothers (not to be confused with the video game characters), and the CIA into doing several dangerous art heists with his singing partner in crime, Tommy "Five-Tone" Messina (Danny Aiello).The holders of the puppet strings turn out to be a "psychotic American corporation", Mayflower Industries, run by husband and wife Darwin (Richard E. Grant) and Minerva Mayflower (Sandra Bernhard) and their blade-slinging butler, Alfred (Donald Burton), who kills Hawk's parole officer.