Beverly Hills Cop
Axel Foley is a gifted detective in Detroit. One night, his old friend Mikey from his ‘old life’ comes to visit, and they have a night of reminiscing and heavy drinking.
However Mikey, who hasn’t left “the life” is murdered, as Axel is left beaten unconscious.
Axel takes ‘vacation’ and decides to head to Beverly Hills to investigate his buddy’s murder. This leads him to another old friend – whose new boss might have something to do with it.
Direction
Martin Brest directs, this being one of only a handful of films he directed in his career.
The mixture of action/comedy is very well achieved. Considering this came before other “cop” series of the 1980s (Lethal Weapon, Die Hard), this holds up incredibly well.
Cast/Characters
Then 23 year old Eddie Murphy plays the main role of Axel Foley, the film that shot him to superstardom.
Judge Reinhold and the late John Aston play Rosewood, and Taggart the police officers who are assigned to him once he arrives in LA.
Other cast members include; Lisa Eilbacher as Jenny, Axel’s friend in LA, Ronny Cox as the LA Lt Bogomil, Steven Berkoff as the big bad Victor Maitland, future Breaking Bad star Jonathan Banks as Maitland’s right hand man, and future ‘Perfect Stranger’ Bronson Pinchot as Serge. No it’s SERGE!
Breakdown
Axel is shown to be a well written police officer in a decade of over abundance of similarly written characters that come after him. His detective skills are on point with such great moments like the strip club robbery scene, and his deducing who is responsible for his buddy’s death.
The pacing is also one of the better films, with great too and fro between Axel and the Victor. There are plenty of moments between them before the climatic showdown.
Ashton’s Taggart and Reinhold’s Rosewood work well together, and have great chemistry in what is assumed as a long time partnership, both ’emotional and physical. Rosewood worried about Taggart’s health, and the hilarious physical comedy moment of them trying to climb over the fence near the end.
There is also a good blend of ‘action and comedy’ which neither of which feel overused, or forced. Murphy who gained this role due to his stand up comedy fame, handles the more mature aspects well, considering his age at the time of filming. Even his Reinhold and Aston were relatively young at 27 and 36 respectively at the time of filming.
Even screen vet Ronny Cox gets to add some comedic moments where he gives a ‘detailed version of events’ of the final shoot out to his boss, mimicking the similar storytelling Axel tells him earlier in the film. Brilliant.
Score/Soundtrack
The score by Harold Faltermeyer introduces us to the famous ‘Axel Foley theme’
Overall
While not without its faults. It does feel as though some scenes were cut early in the film might mean some deleted scenes exist. There is also the over use of the ‘boss wont listen cliche’ but these don’t distract from a very good first film in the franchise (that would get three sequels, the last of which was released 40 years after the original, and 30 years after #3.
Murphy is brilliant as Foley, showing a charismatic, charming and gifted detective.
I forgot how good this was until re-watching for this review. A near perfect film.
4.5/5
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