Beverly Hills Cop (1984) Paramount/Action-Comedy RT: 105 minutes Rated R (pervasive language, violence, brief nudity, drugs) Director: Martin Brest Screenplay: Daniel Petrie Jr. Music: Harold Faltermeyer Cinematography: Bruce Surtees Release date: December 5, 1984 (US) Cast: Eddie Murphy, Judge Reinhold, John Ashton, Lisa Eilbacher, Ronny Cox, Steven Berkoff, James Russo, Jonathan Banks, Stephen Elliott, Gil Hill, Paul Reiser, Bronson Pinchot, Art Kimbro, Joel Bailey, Michael Champion, Frank Pesce. Box Office: $234.7M (US)
Rating: ****
Meet Axel Foley, a street-smart detective from Detroit who goes to Beverly Hills to track down the criminals that murdered his best friend. The comedy smash Beverly Hills Cop is Eddie Murphy’s first solo starring role. In it, he proves he can carry a movie on his own shoulder. He is definitely the star of the show here.
Directed by Martin Brest (Midnight Run), Beverly Hills Cop opens with a wild car chase through the streets of Detroit. Foley is in the middle of an unauthorized sting operation when a couple of uniformed police officers show up and spook the targets of the op. Total vehicular chaos ensues. It results in widespread damage (mainly to parked cars) and in turn, Foley’s CO Inspector Todd (real-life Detroit PD Gil Hill) coming down hard on him.
Foley arrives home to find his childhood friend Mikey (Russo, China Girl) waiting for him in his apartment. He’s been working as a security guard at a Beverly Hills warehouse after a stint in prison. Before leaving for home, he helped himself to a pile of German bearer bonds. His boss, art dealer Victor Maitland (Berkoff, Rambo: First Blood Part II), wants them back. He sends a couple of his guys to retrieve them and retire Mikey for good.
Against the direct orders of his superior, Foley goes to Beverly Hills to find out who killed Mikey. He goes to visit their old friend Jenny (Eilbacher, An Officer and a Gentleman) who runs a gallery owned by Maitland. She got Mikey the job at the warehouse. When Foley attempts to question Maitland, he has him (literally) thrown out of the building, right through the window. Foley is immediately arrested for disturbing the peace and carrying a concealed weapon.
He’s brought to the BH police station where he meets short-tempered Sgt. John Taggart (Ashton, Midnight Run) and naïve Detective Billy Rosewood (Reinhold, Fast Times at Ridgemont High). They don’t like him very much. Neither does their CO Lt. Andrew Bogomil (Cox, RoboCop). He orders Foley to stay away from the investigation, he’s not about to let the murder of his friend go unpunished. He continues to look into it with Jenny’s help while Taggart and Rosewood repeatedly try and fail to keep Foley under surveillance. He outwits them at every turn. Eventually, he gets them on his side.
Beverly Hills Cop is full of classic scenes. Is there anybody who doesn’t know about the “banana in the tailpipe”? Then there’s the part where Foley stops a robbery at a strip joint with the reluctant assistance of Taggart and Rosewood. A lot of the humor comes from Foley reacting to a city that’s the polar opposite from the one he grew up in. He gets a kick out of messing with the snooty types that populate BH. He can jive his way in and out of any situation. The way he gains access to an exclusive country club to harass Maitland is hysterical (albeit politically incorrect). He also can’t believe their cops go strictly by the book, another concept foreign to him. The whole “fish out of water” thing has been done so many times but it really works here thanks to Murphy’s performance and deft direction by Brest.
Like I already said Murphy is the star of this show, but he’s surrounded by a great supporting cast of memorable characters. Ashton and Reinhold have a Laurel and Hardy thing going on. They play well off of each other. Berkoff makes a perfectly detestable villain. Maitland is the kind of rich guy you just know is into something illegal. Jonathan Banks (48 Hrs.), who plays Maitland’s main henchman, is always a welcome presence. Bronson Pinchot (Perfect Strangers) plays Serge, a gay gallery employee with an unidentified foreign accent. His first scene opposite Murphy is hilarious.
Beverly Hills Cop has it all. It’s consistently funny and surprisingly smart. It also boasts some truly exciting action sequences. The climax looks like something out of Scarface with all the shooting and violence. It has an awesome soundtrack too. The opening chase is set to The Pointer Sisters’ “Neutron Dance”. It’s a perfect song placement. Beverly Hills Cop bears all the earmarks of a Jerry Bruckheimer-Don Simpson production. It’s interesting to think it was originally intended as a vehicle for Sylvester Stallone. He ended up turning it down to do Rhinestone. Other actors like Mickey Rourke, Al Pacino and James Caan were offered the role before Murphy took it. Of course, this required a massive script rewrite. They had to add comedy to the mix and make the character more fitting to Murphy’s image. It worked. Beverly Hills Cop is comic gold!
Okay, so the plot is fairly thin and predictable. We know Maitland is the bad guy. Nobody’s surprised that drugs factor into the equation. We all know that Axel will earn the respect of the BHPD by the end. Does any of this really matter? NO! We’re here to see Eddie strut his stuff and do his thing. That’s exactly what he does and does it effortlessly. Is it any wonder he’s the most successful of SNL players to make the jump to the big screen? No two ways about it, Beverly Hills Cop is a classic!
