Beverly Hills Cop (1984)

Continuing my plan to watch every Eddie Murphy movie in order, I come to his second movie of 1984, Beverly Hills CopPlot In A Paragraph: Detroit detective Axel Foley (Murphy) travels to Beverly Hills whilst investigating the murder of his childhood friend. We all know the story, Sly was involved, left and used some of his ideas, from rewriting this in Cobra. Murphy came in, made it more of a comedy and the rest is history!! It's truly impressive how well it balances humor, drama, and action. There are a lot of silly comedy moments where Foley's antics shouldn't fit into a movie about a cop trying to find his friend's killer. We have scene with Foley sneaking around and shoving bananas into the tailpipe of a car and a life or death shoot out. It shouldn't work, but it does. It worked so well, that movie producers are still trying to reproduce today, some 34 years later. I think some scenes stand out as being from the Sly version. The chase at the beginning, The warehouse scene and the shoot out at the end. It's the first time we see 'In association with Eddie Murphy pictures' and Foley is pretty much just Hammond/Valentine with a badge. Judge Reinhold and John Ashton are perfectly cast as the actual Beverly Hills Cops and Ronny Cox (Deliverance) adds more integrity to his role of the grumpy Chief Of Police. Beverly Hills Cop grossed $234 million at the domestic box office to finish 1984 the highest grossing movie of the year. Ahead of Indiana Jones & The Temple Of Doom, Ghostbusters, Karate Kid and Gremlins. A movie won't gross that much until Batman 5 years later. With this movie Murphy cemented his status as the first No 1 black movie star. Sure, Poitier and Pryor, had starred in hit movies movies before Murphy, but they didn't come close to achieving the popularity with audiences that he did here. In his previous movies Murphy shared top billing with a white costar, but with this movie, his was the only name and face on the poster and it was the number one movie of the year. This feat can not be under estimated. It would be 12 years before another black actor would have the highest grossing movie of the year, Will Smith in Independance Day, and it's not happened again since.

Definitely of its time, Beverly Hills Cop is full of wisecracks and 80's/90's pop tunes mixed rather high. In terms of comedy or seriousness, it's neither fish nor fowl. One minute Axel Foley is having his hotel deliver a late lunch to cops that tried to covertly follow him and are staking out the hotel, whereas some time beforehand, and some time later, people are being filled with holes. It's definitely a popcorn cop movie overall, but with serious moments.Eddie Murphy makes a thoroughly likable lead, and his disrespect for procedure contrasts nicely with the buttoned-up procedural processes of the local police department, and I think the film also makes a nice contrast between the opening in Detroit that makes the city look distinctly 3rd world, and the plastic peachiness of California, where even the crooks have mansions (sorry, I meant "as usual"). Although Murphy takes an obvious lead (I can't imagine how the originally-cast Sylvester Stallone would have handled it), the film is carried by the ensemble cast without whom this would have gone nowhere. The script changes made between the Stallone original and the Murphy final have incongruities in how a mean streets Detroit cop has the connections he has (and the name he has, and the brother he no longer has (see the extras for an explanation of that!)) but the whole thing was pretty likable, so this can be overlooked.Overall rating: 9 out of 10.

Beverly Hills Cop is a film about a rebellious Detroit police officer who plays by his own rules. He is a man who believes in justice and truth, he isn't afraid to get the job done even if it means getting a little dirty along the way. Axel Foley isn't your typical play by the rules type of police officer. Axel Foley is no basic police officer. The film Beverly Hills Cop begins with Axel Foley in the back of a semi truck along with two tough gang members in Detroit, Michigan. He is negotiating on a price for the untraceable drugs which he had "supposedly" packed into cigarettes. They are interrupted when a police unit rushes in with there sirens blaring; the police are oblivious to Axel's undercover operation. All of a sudden shots are fired, one man falls to the ground and the other jumps into the drivers seat and takes off, with Axel still in the trucks trailer. A wild police chase erupts with collisions and explosions throughout the city of Detroit and when the truck finally runs out of steam the police realize it is Axel working on an unauthorized case. This is not Axels first time to work undercover without authorization; and as a matter of fact the city of Detroit and the police chief are not happy with Axel's stunts. The city seems as if it was steamrolled and shredded to pieces. Axel is given a final warning from his police chief and threatens to take his job away if he pulls another stunt like that. Shortly after being sent home from work due to his crazed actions Axel witnesses the death of an old friend named Mikey and is driven to crack a case across the country in Beverly Hills. Here is where the movie truly begins to take off, Axels chief told him to stay away from the case, but Axel being the rebel police officer he is knows he can not stay away from the murder case of his best friend. He decides to take a "vacation" to Beverly Hills where Mikey had worked for a man named Victor Maidland. After some investigation on Victor Axel is arrested and taken down town and becomes very familiar with a few of the Beverly Hills police officers. Axel is picked up from the police department by an old friend named Jenny. She works for Victor and was also a good friend of Mikey's. This works out perfectly for Axel because she is able to get him access to buildings in Victors business and give him inside intel that eventually solves the case. The remainder of the movie is all about Axel investigating Victors company searching for clues and evidence to solve the murder case of his friend. He eventually becomes close with police officers who were originally sent to follow him and get him under tight watch. These officers eventually help Axel solve the case and are with him throughout the end of the film. Throughout the film Axel does many things that shouldn't be acceptable for a police officer to do. He goes under cover when he is not authorized to do so, he carries a gun outside of his jurisdiction, he goes to strip clubs and does many other asinine things that a cop is not expected to do. He bends many of the rules and even the laws that police officers are expected to abide by. Even though Axel makes many risky decisions he solves the case and does a really good job. He takes many bad people off the street and cleans up the city of Beverly Hills. If Axel would have done anything differently in the film, the outcome would have been much different. If Axel would have played by the rules and listened to his police chief, he would never have solved the case of his good friend. If he wouldn't have taken police officers that were on duty to a strip club, he never would have gotten a lead that would lead them straight to the source of the murder. Breaking the rules in Axels case was well worth it. Although he had to face a lot of opposition from his senior officers and take a lot of heat from his colleagues. A major case was solved because he wasn't afraid to finish a job regardless of the consequences. Axels bending and breaking the rules type of behavior was a necessary procedure in order for him to be a successful police officer. In the case of Axel Foley and Beverly Hills Cop risking your job, life, and reputation are worth doing something that you believe in. Overall the movie is pretty average, this is your typical police action movie with a bit of Eddie Murphy's comedic twist. So if you have the time go ahead and check out the film "Beverly Hills Cop"

I was too young to watch this movie when it came out in the 80s and so recently I tried to watch it for the first time on Netflix. Couldn't finish it. It was too annoying. The guffawing, the filthy language that would make a sailor blush, and the constant wind-up of the movie left me cringing at scene after scene.Amazing soundtrack though. Love those 80s synthesizers. And the idea of the movie is great! It starts off in poor, dirty Detroit and moves to posh, upscale LA. Great idea for a movie - you've got the socio-economic conflict, the race conflict, the geographical conflict. Sounds good on paper, but most of the movie was just unwatchable. It was just too annoying. I didn't like it. I'm no moralist or anything, far from it, but every other word was f$#@ this, f#$% that. Terrible script, it reminded me of this trashy, tattooed guy I used to live next to. Honestly, I can't believe this script got OKed, it's terrible. But this movie has a 7.3 user rating!! Ha! Oh, that made me laugh. It's a 3 or 4, tops, come on man! Really?! You guys are just too much. Wanted to like it, tried to like it, but didn't. At least I tried. I've seen some awful movies lately so I think I deserve a little bit of credit.