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-cracking, 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 Italian-American Mafia family headed by the Mario Brothers, and the Central Intelligence Agency into doing several dangerous art heists with his singing partner in crime, Tommy "Five-Tone" Messina (Danny Aiello).