Beverly Hills Cop


****

I was writing a review for Malone (1987) earlier and the thought came to me about it regarding the first time I actually watched it. I happened past the black VHS box for the film (didn’t know what it was admittedly) as it sat on my stepdad’s dresser and curiosity got the best of me. I opened it and Malone was the film inside. It was probably 1991 or so I guess. Yeah, I cop to it. I would occasion myself to see what he might have rented from So and So Rent-a-Movie. I thought to myself: this is the first time I come across Malone perhaps since then. That’s quite a while. Random Saturday afternoon action on a movie channel while looking for something else. What does this have to do with Beverly Hills Cop (1984)? In the 90s, I couldn’t tell you how many times the popular 80s films were popped in the VHS player, some snuck off my stepdad’s dresser, others second/third hand recordings. We had our ways to get past the censors. That is what teenagers do really. But there came a time when a bit older those films kind of become distanced. Not really on purpose did I no longer watch Beverly Hills Cop, time just kind of got away from me…eventually we reunite. Like I reunited with Malone, Beverly Hills Cop was on Saturday night and I took the time to watch it.

Axel Foley wasn’t admired by Roger Ebert that much. He took advantage when the chance was available, often using lip service and double talk to get into places and alternate his way out of sticky situations. In a warehouse where he shouldn’t be trying to sniff out criminal, illegal activities fronted by an art dealership or acquiring a fancy, ritzy hotel room through fake employment titles similar to Fletch (Chevy Chase). Getting involved Beverly Hills cops (Judge Reinhold and John Ashton) assigned to tail him by their boss (Ronny Cox). They are unsuccessful at following him but once he recruits them to help him take down the ones responsible for murdering his thieving buddy from childhood (James Russo), which includes art dealer, Victor Maitland (Steven Berkoff, known for his foreign heavies in action films of the time) and his Number 1 (Jonathan Banks) the trio eventually have to fend off plenty of gunmen firing machine guns at them. Berkoff gets plenty of face time so he can get you to hate him and Banks has that sociopathic coldness to him that provokes a response…especially when Banks shoots Russo. The aggressive confrontations between Axel and Maitland give you the incentive to look forward to their final meeting at the end when it will come to guns drawn and bullets fired. Cox can’t get much relief as Axel can be quite a handful with his bananas in tailpipes, ordered food for the cops right off the hotel menu, visits to strip clubs, trips out windows, coffee grains from cargo boxes possibly concealing cocaine, and threats to Maitland in posh restaurants after chunking Banks’ Zach across a cuisine table. There’s the other friend (Lisa Eilbacher, looking quite yummy in her custom Beverly Hills attire, fitting all the right curves with that hair all done up, certainly going through the rounds with the stylist: I’ll vouch that they dolled her up real nice) who was waiting tables before Maitland set her up with the operations manager of the art studio, a rather profitable gig. Bronson Pinchot as her fey assistant offers espresso and small talk, stealing his scenes with a willing Murphy participating in humorous banter. Paul Reiser is the cop in his Detroit department always outmatched by Murphy’s unflappable gifts of gabby avoidance, retreating from cop matters that might undermine his goals to successfully close assigned investigations. And poor Gilbert R Hill’s Inspector Todd—Murphy’s foul-mouthed, over-extended boss, always cleaning up his messes it seems—tries to keep from having an anxiety attack. From blue collar Detroit, with its smog, poverty row ambience, and unemployment to affluent Beverly Hills, with its palm trees, sunny ambience, and wealth; Axel goes from the outhouse to the penthouse, causing plenty of problems for the “nice police” unaccustomed to his streetwise, stubborn, clever, malcontent ways. He is definitely not content with letting those who murdered his friend (for stealing “dirty” bonds from Maitland and returning to former home, Detroit, to visit Axel) get away with it, even if this results in his career being over as a cop.

I see the appeal of Foley as a think-on-his-feet cop who always finds himself in car chases, gunfights, and traded barbs. Disguised in personae, every bit the escape artist, Axel amazingly evades the forces that might work against him (working as a cop although technically “on vacation”, confronting Maitland when told not to, investigating places illegally, etc) and, ironically, is assisted by Cox in putting down Maitland. With Ashton and Reinhold reluctant participants (the strip club results in the capture of two trenchcoat, shotgun bandits Foley notices, later trying to convince Cox they were the heroes), debating getting involved, only to go against their better judgment in order to stop Maitland, the chemistry of this trio and their back-and-forth was the series’ enduring legacy truthfully. After watching the sequel after this, that was the only positive I could derive from part 2. The first film, though, gets the most out of the trio. Everything just clicks. The embarrassment of Foley bettering them (and then bettering their duo cop rivals when Cox can take no more of Ashton and Reinhold’s incompetence) and then their active roles in stopping the bad guys is part of the film’s charm, I think. Cox obviously won over by Foley’s instincts and generally on-target observations combats the shenanigans he often pulls. It all comes out okay in the end, of course.

If the compound raid and bullet-ridden bodies at the end doesn’t give action fans enough, the opening car chase where Foley hangs out in a cigarette box truck while being pursued by police has plenty of auto carnage. And yes, a fruit/vegetable stand gets plowed…I wouldn’t expect anything less. Only thing missing is the Wilhelm scream. We do have the Eddie signature laugh aplenty.... that'll do.






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