I saw this last in the theater in 1984. I apparently liked it a lot, given that I was a fan of period SNL where Murphy was the breakout star. Who of my generation can forget such indelible, original characters as Gumby, Buckwheat, James Brown, or Mr. Robinson?
Hmm. Reduced to a short list, SNL's level of creativity hasn't really gone downhill as older fans are apt to suggest. In fact, the series is almost depressingly holding the line in creativity and memorable characters. I guess every generation does get the SNL it deserves!
At any rate, Murphy, like all breakout SNL stars before and since, quickly left for the greener pastures of Hollywood. His early vehicles were a mixed bag: 48 Hours, a strong performer at the time, is a strictly formula cop buddy/revenge movie with a hell of a lot more of a humorless Nick Nolte than you probably remember. While the force of Murphy's audience goodwill made the film a success, it's not much of a stretch to say that many other actors could have done about as much with the sidekick role.
Next came Trading Places, which was the first film that seemed to harness the Murphy SNL audiences wanted: a streetwiseacre. There was no harm in his being surrounded by A-list supporting talent in a still-hot Aykroyd and Jamie Lee Curtis (plus fine villain turns from Don Ameche and Ralph Bellamy) to keep him from having to carry the film by himself. Yes, that bit with the gorilla falls completely flat, but still, Trading Places remains a bright line on Murphy's early resume.
And then there's Best Defense. A troubled film originally starring only Dudley Moore (a draw, briefly, from 10 and Arthur) and in need of some, nay, any, appeal. Flailing, the studio slapped in a part for Murphy and famously drove a dumptruck filled with cash to his home as compensation. All of this failed spectacularly, and Best Defense died a well-deserved theatrical death.
In fact, there was talk that it may have killed Murphy's fledgling film career. Luckily, before he could be sent back to TV, he had one more film in production during that point, and, better, it was Beverly Hills Cop.
While 48 Hours was a simple buddy cop film, BHC is a stock genre better suited to our lead: the fish out of water.
First surprise: It's a Simpson/Bruckheimer film. I didn't remember that, but it makes perfect sense. The "R" action-comedy was refined throughout the 80s by these guys. Also, Murphy received a production credit for his involvement in adapting the role to his strengths.
Second surprise: Martin Brest (who?). This is his commercial apex; in more recent years he's directed the turgid Meet Joe Black as well as one of the most infamous bombs in recent history, Gigli.
We open in Detroit, a montage of street footage that wouldn't be out of place in 8 Mile. It's setting the cred for a cigarette deal instigated by one Axel Foley. I think Murphy is a little young to be a full detective (22 at the time of filming), but perhaps that's just the attrition of the mean Detroit streets. Anyhow, detective Foley has a truck full of tax-stamped Lucky Strikes but his buyer is trying to stiff him for three grand. Right from the start we have solid establishment of Axel F's smart and fast-talking style, and it's done without leaden exposition bludgeoning the audience.
Then the cops arrive, precipitating the first of many car chases; much of this one involves Foley barely hanging onto the cargo netting in the open rear of the truck. While minor to the scene, I'd like to point out how well shot the arrival of the police squad car is. Often the plot-demanded cops jump in from just offscreen, siren blaring. This one passes the alley where the deal is taking place, as far in the background as possible. It doubles back, then turns in, slowly creeping up while covered by the argument over the broken deal until the last moment when the police finally let their presence be known with a traffic-stop jab of siren. Nicely underplayed.
The resulting chase is anything but. Buses spin out, fruit trucks are destroyed, police cruisers are wrecked. It's not quite as over the top as the Blues Brothers' many chases, but for an introductory chase at the time it's fairly gratuitously destructive. And likely the producers scribbled down every beat to use in almost all their subsequent films.
Eventually run off the road, Foley is cornered, nearly busted, but then recognized by his fellow cops. His captain, hewing to rogue-cop movie convention, gives him to understand that Just One More Stunt will cost him his badge and sends him home.
The drive home introduces us to the infectious little bit of synth that made Harold Faltermeyer famous, Axel's theme song, Axel F. Every good hero needs theme music. Arriving home, he finds his door ajar and goes in with gun drawn. But it's just his old friend Mikey, fresh from prison and helping himself to Axel's fridge. Mikey's spent some time in Beverly Hills, working for a mutual old friend. He very recently left his Security Guard job with a sack full of German bearer bonds.
And then the two of them bond over some pool and drinks and Pointer Sister tunes, dropping in some backstory. They grew up together, but Mikey went to JD prison for a job Axel was on. Mikey never ratted on Axel out of love, a tender moment quickly forgotten when two toughs ambush them outside Axel's apartment.
Mikey is carrying the sack of bonds (not especially sure why; it's not as if he was buying drinks with them), which is of course what the two are after. The more talkative thug, played by Jonathan "Frank McPike" Banks, knocks a drunk and reeling Axel out with one punch, and then executes Mikey regular mob style with one pointblank to the back of the head. I remember that I was shocked at this swift, final violence in 1984.
Thus the story is set. Axel takes his "vacation" time in Los Angeles to investigate Mikey's Beverly Hills connections, leading to a second scene-establishing montage, this time featuring Conspicuous Consumption while he looks at the shiny alternate world from the crappy blue Chevy Nova that he drove in from Detroit.
This introduces the Mumford HS Phys Ed. Department tee; I had one in 1984 and was forever explaining it to people who thought it looked familiar but couldn't quite place it. Also introduced, and quickly wearing out its welcome, is Murphy's knee-jerk asthmatic chuckle at anything nuttily "Californian" he encounters. Taking a page from Hunter Thompson, he bluffs a Rolling Stone job to the desk clerks at the Beverly Palm hotel (cheap for the Hills at $235 a night). Then he's off to hit the streets to find Mikey's old employer and laugh more at the locals.
Mikey worked at a gallery full of conceptual modern art, which means the pieces mostly look like props from Herbie Hancock's Rockit video. They're priced in the six-figure range, and Serge, played with winningly corny accent by a career-establishing Bronson Pinchot, offers Axel an espresso while he waits for his Mutual Friend to come out of her office. Espresso, however, is yet another nutty California thing that has no room in Axel's philosophy.
Meeting with Mutual Friend Jenny leads him up the ladder to Mikey's former employer, gallery owner and art maven Victor Maitland (it's eerie how much Steven Berkoff resembles the ghost of Rutger's future). He's so rich and connected that he actually has five thugs in suits waiting around to throw nosy Detroit cops through the plate-glass window of his lobby. Not only is this within his budget, he can have the Beverly Hills PD immediately swoop in (much the way the Detroit cops did not in the opening scene) and take Axel "downtown." This scene does stretch credibility just a tad.
Even the trumped up charges do not diminish Axel's sense of wonder, though; it's the cleanest, nicest police car he's ever seen. His cell is his alone, and it's also spotless. The station looks much like NORAD would. When questioned by two of the polite, utterly white bread officers, Foley's foul mouth provokes the elder, Taggart, into punching him. To his shock, the lieutenant on duty, Bogomil, (Ronny Cox, long-reigning king of white bread) immediately forces an apology from Taggart and prompts Foley if he'd like to press charges. Foley shrugs it off, invoking the code of Real Law Enforcement: Cops don't go after other cops. But here, Lt. Bogomil explains, they play strictly by the book.
Axel's eventually bailed out by Mutual Friend Jenny, and quickly spots Taggart and his junior partner Rosewood (Judge Reinhold's second big role, IIRC) following them. Returning to the hotel, he sends them dinner while surreptitiously stuffing bananas (procured from a film-debut Damon Wayans as the Banana Man) in their boring beige tailpipe. It stands up as one of many scenes which would fail utterly if trusted to someone with less charm than a young Eddie Murphy; look at any number of later SNL vehicles for support of this theory. His banana shenanigans keep Rosewood and Taggart from interfering with Foley casing Maitland's warehouse, the property Mikey worked at.
At first we're teased into thinking we'll just find a little evidence of wrongdoing at the warehouse, but then two of Maitland's other employees show up and allow Axel and Jenny to witness the unloading of stacks of German bearer bonds -- just like the ones Mikey had a sack of. Hmm!
Back at the cleanest PD in the world, Bogomil is chewing out Taggart and Rosewood for their ineptitude. Taggart is gruffly apologetic (combining his two possible states of mind) while Rosewood is admiringly recounting the story of their late supper. Bogomil has taken a page from Detroit: One more screw-up and they're gone.
Axel, a lone wolf who plays by his own rules, returns to the Maitland warehouse. Using more of that Detroit moxie and playing on whitey's inherent Fear of the Black Man, Foley gets the Bonded Warehouse folks to search all of Maitland's crates currently on-site. What does he find? Not telling yet.
Returning finally to his hotel, he drops in on T & R, still dutifully maintaining their stakeout. Axel has decided it's time for the rivals to put their differences aside and work together. Rosewood is all for it, but Taggart, returning to gruff, refuses to be friends. As a compromise, all three end up at the same discreet, conservative strip club. He starts to detail what he's found out about Maitland when two suspicious toughs wander in. Foley's onto them right off, and the bust conveniently wins even Taggart over.
Lt. Bogomil is again unamused, and after Taggart blows a perfectly good lie Axel told to cover them, T&R are off the case. Henceforth his "A" detective team will be tailing Axel F. And they won't be falling for no bananas in their tailpipes. They are still easily shaken off, though, and soon Axel's out forcing a second confrontation with Maitland. This time it's at a fashionable buffet dining room, and so after Axel tosses McPike into the buffet, Victor's willing to hear him out.
It's a pretty standard "I know you're up to no good and I'm going to get you," speech which of course is followed by the "Your puny weapons cannot harm me. Leave now while you still can" response. Then the BHPD arrives to enforce that last point.
This time, Axel's ready to level with Lieutenant Cox. And while he's even sympathetic, he needs more proof; unfortunately the coffee grounds aren't enough for a warrant and he will not cut corners. Just as Cox is ready to play along, the chief, his boss and a crotchety oldster wheels out, reads a summary of Axel's exploits in LA, and then summons Cox to a private ass-chewing.
Nice bit here; when Foley begins to mock the chief once he's cloistered in Bogomil's office, all the rank and file types are horrorstruck. "What, can that guy hear me through the wall?" "Yeah, he can." They chorus.
When a walking-abnormally Lt. Bogomil emerges, he has orders to escort Axel to the city limits (of BH, not LA). Yes, he's being run out of town.
Elsewhere, Victor Maitland is finally responding to all this. He goes to visit Jenny, who does, after all, manage a gallery for him. He would like to know where Axel is, Jenny feigns ignorance -- for the moment, convincingly enough.
Back at the station, Axel has conveniently left out the fact that he knows when Maitland's next shipment is coming. He's also, conveniently, being run out of town by Rosewood, the BHPD man most sympathetic to him. This is all just a little too handy a way to move us into a third act. A little cajoling and now it's a team effort. And following another stop at the gallery, it's a threesome to check out the warehouse. Naturally the moment they've unconvered actual contraband, Maitland's goons surprise Axel and Jenny. Outside, Rosewood stews in indicision as some goons lead Jenny out to the car.
In true Blofeldian fashion, Maitland taunts the helpless Foley. McPike even admits to killing Mikey (recall that Axel was knocked out at that point) and then the two turn on their heels and leave, confident that the troublesome Mr. Foley will never bother them again. Naturally, all four of the goons left to deal with him are easily felled by a frontal assault by Rosewood. The two then return to Maitland's house to rescue/avenge Jenny.
Taggart, called for backup, arrives as Foley's picking the lock on Victor's east gate. Backed by Rosewood and a shotgun-toting Taggart (he's probably waited decades to break that out in BH), they start searching the grounds. Outgunned badly in what is a surely influenced by Scarface shootout, the slower, suit-wearing BHPD companions are pinned down and must wait for Lt. Bogomil's backup cars as Billy Rosewood entertains Butch and Sundance fantasies.
Inside the house, Foley achieves some vengeance on McPike, using the old high-low. Maitland himself wings him with a .357, and then the BHPD arrives en masse. There's a brief flirtation with Maitland in the gun-to-hostage's-head scenario, but then Bogomil himself enters for another high-low: Jenny escapes while Axel and Bogomil punch Maitland's card.
The chief himself arrives for the mop-up, and, showing an old dog can learn a new trick, Bogomil sells a slightly truth-extended version of events. When even Taggart refuses to blow the whistle, the chief has no choice but to congratulate everyone involved.
And then it's time for the final wrap up. The BHPD picks up Axel's room at the Beverly Palm, Axel buys bathrobes for Rosewood and Taggart (while stealing three for himself), and the two join him for a beer as they escort him from BH forever. Until the sequel.
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Pros: Effortless charm and star wattage from Eddie Murphy, a solid supporting cast (made up, admittedly, of straight men for him to skewer), and solid if unspectacular direction.
Cons: Makes you really mourn what's become of Eddie Murphy. Also a blueprint for summer action films that would be xeroxed with diminishing charm ad nauseum for the next two decades and counting.
Then: A
Now: B+
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