Beverly Hills Cop
1984 Directed by Martin Brest
Synopsis
The Heat Is On!
Tough-talking Detroit cop Axel Foley heads to the rarified world of Beverly Hills in his beat-up Chevy Nova to investigate a friend's murder. But soon, he realizes he's stumbled onto something much more complicated. Bungling rookie detective Billy Rosewood joins the fish-out-of-water Axel and shows him the West Los Angeles ropes.
Cast
Popular reviews
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The benchmark for the buddy cop movie.
The benchmark for an action comedy.
The benchmark for Eddie Murphy.
This is the film that made Eddie Murphy Americas biggest star in the early 1980s, and its easy to see why. Beverly Hills Cop is a film that would only work with him starring. The entire film is built around him, and he fills any gaps with some splendid Murphy-ism's. Just for some added insurance, we get the brilliant John Ashton and Judge Reinhold. Brilliantly cast, I couldn't think of anyone else in their roles.
This should be in many, many people's extended greatest films list.
If you don't like Beverly Hills Cop, please tell me now so I can forever disregard your opinions.
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Martin Brest is a talent that is worth reviving.
I know that a run of films that contains Scent Of A Woman, Meet Joe Black and Gigli suggests otherwise, but this is the man that made Midnight Run and Beverly Hills Cop. I believe Going In Style is supposed to be superb as well. I'm not going to subscribe to the 'fluke' theories because his good films have just been TOO good for me to believe that's the case.
For me, Midnight Run is quite a lot better than Beverly Hills Cop, which is a film that many would say seems to get by more or less on the back of Eddie Murphy's Axel Foley. It might be difficult to…
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Part of **No ReWatch November 2012**.
It occurred to me that I could remember almost nothing about this movie. Watching it just now, I am convinced I have never seen it all the way through.
I can see that it's an influential movie. A lot of the tropes that came to be common in action comedies and buddy-cop movies may have gotten their start here. Within the first half hour, we have Axel's boss screaming at him across the locker room, talking about how the chief chewed his ass and Axel better stop being a screw-up, Yadda Yadda -- you can fill in the rest. Plus, you get that mix of serious action and silliness that came to characterize the…
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Revisited this and it was just as good as I remembered it. Eddie Murphy is at that perfect "Eddie Murphy Level" here. Cool and funny, without being obnoxious. Also fun to see a young Jonathan Banks (Mike from Breaking Bad) doing his toughguy thing.
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The benchmark for the buddy cop movie.
The benchmark for an action comedy.
The benchmark for Eddie Murphy.
This is the film that made Eddie Murphy Americas biggest star in the early 1980s, and its easy to see why. Beverly Hills Cop is a film that would only work with him starring. The entire film is built around him, and he fills any gaps with some splendid Murphy-ism's. Just for some added insurance, we get the brilliant John Ashton and Judge Reinhold. Brilliantly cast, I couldn't think of anyone else in their roles.
This should be in many, many people's extended greatest films list.
If you don't like Beverly Hills Cop, please tell me now so I can forever disregard your opinions.
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Now THIS is how to do an R-rated comedy. Lots of F-bombs, some boobs, and some violence thrown in for good measure. No need for dicks and poop. This movie is nearly perfect and is still as funny as when I first watched it many moons ago. The pacing is fantastic; it never gets bogged down in relationship nonsense, or overly emotional clap-trap, it's either being funny or being actioney (yes, actioney). Such an awesome movie. The only reason it gets knocked off half a star is due to some of the music. I still like Faltermeyer's score a lot, but I never realized how pervasive the rest of the music was, even turning into little musical montages in a couple of spots, and that got on my nerves. Otherwise, it is so much freaking fun.
Too bad Gigli killed Martin Brest's career. :(
Recent reviews
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Perfect: Eddie Murphy, Judge Reinhold, the soundtrack.
Meh: The rest. -
The benchmark for the buddy cop movie.
The benchmark for an action comedy.
The benchmark for Eddie Murphy.
This is the film that made Eddie Murphy Americas biggest star in the early 1980s, and its easy to see why. Beverly Hills Cop is a film that would only work with him starring. The entire film is built around him, and he fills any gaps with some splendid Murphy-ism's. Just for some added insurance, we get the brilliant John Ashton and Judge Reinhold. Brilliantly cast, I couldn't think of anyone else in their roles.
This should be in many, many people's extended greatest films list.
If you don't like Beverly Hills Cop, please tell me now so I can forever disregard your opinions.
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Really fun movie, has a charm that you hardly ever see in movies anymore, a lot of it comes from Eddy Murphy who carries the lead in a great way mixing comedy and also delivering on the detective side of things. The side characters are briefly introduced yet they seem fully realized, some of them clearly caricatures but it works.
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One of the best action comedies ever made.
And... Eddie got DAT laugh.
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It is no wonder that this movie propelled the career of one of the most successful comedians of all time into super stardom.
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Watching the great Bruce Surtees film the opening chase with grain-heavy atmosphere and spatial precision — with its paradigm-establishing, casual passing destruction of many, many motor vehicles ironically appropriate for the Detroit setting — it's hard not to long for a time when Hollywood movies simply gave enough of a shit to do the little things with care and attention, just for the sake of doing them right. Disposable entertainment but sturdy, with Eddie Murphy's race-joke levels tamped down substantively from 48 Hours for crossover success' sake. Pissed-off superiors keep wondering if Axel Foley is such a smart-ass loose cannon because he's so young, a good in-joke about a potentially unreliable property who'd quickly become a huge star (Murphy was…
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Smart, rude, crude and clever. An 80s cop comedy at it's finest from director Martin Brest.
The film that really launched the Hollywood attraction to comedic power-house Eddie Murphy as Detroit cop Axel Foley who sneaks away to Beverly Hills to track down a cop killer with his unique style of investigation ruffling more than a few feathers on BOTH sides of the law.
With stellar support from Judge Reinhold, John Ashton, Steven Berkoff and Ronny Cox, the laughs come thick and fast with Murphy's brilliant turn as Foley trying to adjust to a totally different world that he's used to.
A witty script, a brutal story and loveable characters. You don't get films this raw and brilliant now.
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For what may have been a goofy idea, "A black cop from Detroit goes to Beverly Hills!" it just works. And 80% of that is Murphy. He's is just really good. Personable. Charismatic. Funny. And even gets some decent dramatic and action beats.
It hits a lot of cliches, but ducks just as many. Like the hard-ass Lieutenant being cool and sitting down and actually listening to Foley.
It's still a fun movie.