Frækkere end politiet tillader
“Beverly Hills Cop” is another 1984
classic, which, to my pleasant surprise, actually made it onto the List. This
is a movie I watched countless time in my childhood, but I believe it must have
been a few decades since last time I watched it. It is still fun to watch, but
I remember it as being much better than how I found it now. To me, it has not
aged well.
In Detroit, Axel Foley (Eddie Murphy) is an
undercover police officer who is known for his controversial stunts that sometimes
backfires. One evening he finds an old friend of his, Mikey Tandino (James
Russo), in his apartment. Mikey clearly has something he wants to share with Axel,
but never gets to fully explain before he gets shot and Axel knocked out by
unknown gunmen.
Axel Foley is told in no uncertain terms to
stay out of this case, so he takes “vacation” and follow Michaels trail to Beverly
Hills. This is right here the basis for much of the comedy in “Beverly Hills
Cop”, the bummed out, black policeman in uber posh Beverly Hills. Anybody
familiar with Eddie Murphy will know this is a situation he can get a lot out
of (a good example is “Trading Places”).
Axel quickly manages to get arrested by the
local police who do not wish to have this potential disaster in their precinct.
Detective William Rosewood (Judge Reinhold) and Sergeant John Taggart (John Ashton)
are to babysit him until he leaves town, but Axel manages to get them on his
side to find Mikeys murderer. The murder is, of course, only the tip of an
iceberg of much bigger crime...
As a crime story, “Beverly Hills Cop” is
one big cliché. Everything from the villain to Axel’s angry boss through the
investigation, which is a combo unlawful entry and sheer provocation, is
something we have seen both before and after in many versions. Be it a private
eye or an actual police detective, the story is almost as old as the film
media. Let us just say that it is not the excitement of solving the criminal
case that keeps us awake watching this movie.
The reason we, or at least I, still enjoy
watching this movie has a name and is called Eddie Murphy. It is strange to
learn that “Beverly Hills Cop” was not actually written for Murphy, but
actually intended for Sylvester Stallone. It was only when the action his
version would involve got too expensive for the studio that they turned to
Eddie Murphy and rewrote it to fit him. When you watch “Beverly Hills Cop”, it
screams vehicle to high heaven. Every scene Eddie Murphy is in, and that is
somewhere above 90%, he totally steals the picture. Reinhold and Ashton, good
actors in their own right, are reduced to stooges for Murphy’s hijinks.
Fortunately, Eddie Murphy is good and many of his stunts are funny. He is maybe
a bit unbelievable as a cop, but, hey, this is the eighties, social realism got
left behind in the previous decade.
Three or four decades ago, “Beverly Hills
Cop” gave me hysterical laughing fits. Watching it now, they are reduced to a
chuckle and that I found disappointing. The gags are simply not that funny
anymore and without the fun, the rest of the movie looks poor and barely
sticking together.
The soundtrack is still good though.
Faltermeyer’s Axel F theme is one of those classic scores you never forget and
in a strange coincidence, “The Heat is Up” was selected last Friday at the
company Christmas lunch as the theme song of the Energy Systems department...
This music still lives.
Recently, a new, fourth, Beverly Hills Cop instalment
was released. I have not watched it yet and I worry. This was a franchise that
took a steep downhill after the success of this first instalment.
