Fazer on Films: Beverly Hills Cop I and II

Ah the '80s, the hair was big, the music was loud, and the action movie was not holding back. This decade was also the decade that introduced the world to Eddie Murphy, probably one of the most influential black comedians/movie stars ever. It is insane the number of people Eddie gave a start to just because he liked their stand up act. Here are a few you might recognize: Chris Rock (beverly hills cop I), Damon Wayans (beverly hills cop II), Arsenio Hall (coming to america), bronson pinchot (beverly hills cop I), and more recently Dave Chappelle (the nutty professor). Eddie had already hit it big with 48 hours, but when Beverly Hills Cop hit he entered a new realm of stardom.

BHC was a pretty fantastic achievement. The movie constantly managed the huge onscreen persona of Eddie within the movie. Martin Brest, the director, managed to setup a legitimate structure to the movie and gave Murphy 3-4 playground scenes to just go at it and let loose. The movie is no directorial showpiece, but it mixed decent action with great comedy and some good characters. Any fans of the BHC series know and love Billy Rosewood and John Taggert. Those two characters themselves could have carried a movie, but they made for great foils for the wisecracking Axel Foley. Of course, Judge Reinhold was genius as always in his portrayal of a goofy white guy not quite with the situation. One of my favorite scenes in the entire movie is when Foley breaks into the customs holding department and at the drop of a dime puts on the "inspector routine", which you know had to be improvised, and totally kills it..."How can a black man, dressed like me, just walk right in here and start snooping around?" Also, you gotta give a mad shout out for the music in the entire series. Obviously the "Axel F theme" is something of legend (and my cellphone ringtone), but then there was "the heat is on", "shakedown", "nasty girl", etc.

BHC II directed by Tony Scott took a more action approach to the series, but definitely did not skimp on the comedy. People accuse of Tony Scott of being very edit happy in his work, but his earlier stuff was pretty serviceable. There were some nicely shot robbery scenes in this movie, but when it came to the comedy aspects he once again just stepped back and kept the camera on Eddie. A whole multitude of scenes exist in this movie as well with one of my favorites being eddie getting the construction workers to stop renovation on the house..."weren't you at the meeting? You didnt get the new plans? They dont want any 90 degree angles in this house!" One thing I really enjoyed in this movie was how they advanced on the Rosewood, Taggart, Foley relationship. They established something great in part 1 and it was nice to see it being built upon.

All in all, Beverly Hills Cop I and II stand as landmark action/comedy pieces. They were big hits early on for Simpson/Bruckheimer and I feel you can see the influence of these two movies on a lot of the future projects coming from those two producers. In general, it sort of jumpstarted the whole Adult action comedy genre and really hasn't been emulated too well in the 20 plus years that followed.