Boy, looking back at Berverly Hills Cop, almost 20 years after its original release, it’s easy to see why people fell in love with the movie, earning a then unheard-of of $316 million worldwide (the highest grossing R-rated movie ever) and propelling Eddie Murphy from a funny ensemble player in films like Trading Places and 48 HRS. to a megastar.
Beverly Hills Cop is actually a bit of a nutty idea combine a standard cop actioner with a fish out of water tale. Who would’ve thought that would be any good? But it works, and how, with Murphy turning in perhaps his funniest performance ever mocking the supporting cast at every turn (favorite targets: gay men, uptight men, and gay/uptight men) and tossing off one-liners like he’s got a wad of them stuffed in his pocket. His Axel Foley, one of the most widely impersonated characters in film (remember the popularity of the “Mumford Phys. Ed.” sweatshirt?), heads from rough-and-tumble Detroit to prim-and-proper Beverly Hills to investigate the murder of his best friend, uncovering a much bigger plot, of course.
Judge Reinhold, as a rather hapless junior cop in L.A., made enough of a mark here to carry a career of duds for a full decade, and the soundtrack, including the ubiquitous instrumental “Axel F,” was full of what would become 1980s smash hits. If the plot wasn’t such a throwaway, Cop might have stood as one of the greatest action comedies ever made, but it does stand as Murphy’s funniest work and the inspiration for dozens of knockoffs (including two throwaway sequels, each worse than the last).
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