{"id":449,"date":"2024-07-09T03:46:24","date_gmt":"2024-07-09T03:46:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=449"},"modified":"2024-10-14T12:51:08","modified_gmt":"2024-10-14T16:51:08","slug":"beverly-hills-cop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/07\/09\/beverly-hills-cop\/","title":{"rendered":"Beverly Hills Cop"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

\"\"Beverly Hills Cop <\/strong>(1984)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Paramount\/Action-Comedy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 105 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (pervasive language, violence, brief nudity, drugs)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Martin Brest\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Daniel Petrie Jr.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Harold Faltermeyer\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Bruce Surtees\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0Release date: December 5, 1984 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 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.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $234.7M (US)<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Rating<\/strong>: ****<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u00a0Meet 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 <\/strong>is Eddie Murphy\u2019s 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.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u00a0Directed by Martin Brest (Midnight Run), Beverly Hills Cop <\/strong>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\u2019s CO Inspector Todd (real-life Detroit PD Gil Hill) coming down hard on him.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u00a0Foley arrives home to find his childhood friend Mikey (Russo, China Girl) waiting for him in his apartment. He\u2019s 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.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u00a0Against 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.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u00a0He\u2019s brought to the BH police station where he meets short-tempered Sgt. John Taggart (Ashton, Midnight Run) and na\u00efve Detective Billy Rosewood (Reinhold, Fast Times at Ridgemont High). They don\u2019t 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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u00a0Beverly Hills Cop <\/strong>is full of classic scenes. Is there anybody who doesn’t know about the “banana in the tailpipe”? Then there\u2019s 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\u2019s 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\u2019t believe their cops go strictly by the book, another concept foreign to him. The whole \u201cfish out of water\u201d thing has been done so many times but it really works here thanks to Murphy\u2019s performance and deft direction by Brest.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u00a0Like I already said Murphy is the star of this show, but he\u2019s 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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u00a0Beverly Hills Cop <\/strong>has it all. It\u2019s 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\u2019 \u201cNeutron Dance\u201d. It\u2019s a perfect song placement. Beverly Hills Cop<\/strong> 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<\/strong> is comic gold! \u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u00a0Okay, 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\u2019s exactly what he does and does it effortlessly. Is it any wonder he\u2019s the most successful of SNL players to make the jump to the big screen? No two ways about it, Beverly Hills Cop<\/strong> is a classic!<\/p>\r\n

\"\"<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Beverly Hills Cop (1984)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Paramount\/Action-Comedy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 105 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (pervasive language, violence, brief nudity, drugs)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Martin Brest\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Daniel Petrie Jr.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Harold Faltermeyer\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Bruce Surtees\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0Release date: December 5, 1984 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Eddie Murphy, Judge Reinhold, John Ashton, Lisa Eilbacher, Ronny Cox, Steven Berkoff, James Russo, Jonathan Banks, Stephen Elliott, Gil […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":511,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-comedies"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Beverly-Hills-Cop-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=449"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":512,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449\/revisions\/512"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/511"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}