48 Hrs
The Buddy Movie is one that follows the rules of a certain formula and sticks to it, usually featuring two major stars teamed together to solve the case, get the money, etc, all while exchanging snappy repartee and one liners with each other as any sense of a major female lead is nearly absent. The first true example of this kind was probably Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid in 1969, a major success that featured Newman and Redford doing their thing in the wild west, but the film itself suffered from pacing issues and some awfully placed musical interludes. Various other examples followed in the 70s, but it cannot be said that the genre was PERFECTED until 1982 with the release of this action comedy by director Walter Hill that brought everything together with precision skill. For our two stars, first we get Nick Nolte, no doubt the scruffiest example ever of a guy who was somehow able to pass muster as a Hollywood leading man, and who had been building his rep and career for about 5 years at that point, and on the other hand there was Eddie Murphy, making his movie debut at that time but already a much talked about big name based off of his work on Saturday Night Live and a guy who much like Richard Pryor ten years before, was willing to tackle racial issues in his brand of humor early on, and who like Pryor had gained a major following amongst both white and black audiences that was the key to his overall major success, but the most interesting thing about Murphy was the obvious influence on his work by WHITE comedians and pop culture institutions, proving himself smart enough to realize that race was not just a sole determining factor in how to be funny and appealing in the entertainment industry. Following his debut in this movie, Murphy went on to have an amazing, unbroken 80s run of films that were at least solid until the early 90s arrived and he got stuck in duds like Boomerang. But here is where it all started, and the general concensus is that this still remains one of the greatest debuts of all time, with Murphy showing astonishing onscreen presence and poise at only the age of 20, as he and Nolte displayed sensational chemistry and humor alongside the movie’s dark, violent storyline. The story begins with a convict on a chain gang (James Remar) staging a daring escape with the help of his old running buddy (Sonny Landham) as the two of them speed off in a truck headed for the city. Turns out that they along with others in their gang had committed a robbery some years back on a reputed drug dealer for half a million dollars, and once back in the city, they hit up one of their old comrades (David Patrick Kelly) to help them obtain the money so that they can take off with a fighting chance to buy their way to freedom. Enter Nolte’s Jack Cates, a hard nosed, even harder drinking cop who first encounters these bastards when assisting on a bust during a hooker run by the two, only to be outsmarted and worse, witness the two other veteran cops with him get mercilessly blown away by the sons of bitches about whom it is said that they get off on killing cops. A quick summary of Remar’s known associates reveals one gang member still in prison on an armed robbery beef, so Nolte hits upon the idea of springing him from the joint for a two day period to help and assist him with drumming up leads in order to catch the pair although Nolte doesn’t know about the stolen money that his newfound partner is more interested in intercepting than helping him catch his prey, although that would also be a benefit for him to get them out of the way as well. As that particular convict given a quick furlough to help catch his old buddies is Murphy as Reggie Hammond, first seen sitting in his cell singing Sting’s “Roxanne” as Nolte approaches, and right from the getgo the magic of seeing these two teaming up is in their obvious dislike for each other from the start, with the script pulling no punches in the development of Nolte’s character, making him an outright racist who spends much of the film hurling some pretty offensive epithets Murphy’s way, and even as the story goes on and the two of them work up a begrudging respect for each other, the overall edginess of the writing and acting along with the racial tension between the two of them makes for a fascinating cocktail especially in the way that they do generate a fair amount of humor off of these things, and if not always that, still remain entertaining to watch, with Murphy’s crowning moment and the one scene that many credit as the one that made him a major star being when Murphy walks into a whiter than white redneck bar with Nolte who has bet him that he can’t find out a crucial piece of information from the bartender about one of the killers and even hands him his badge to see if he can prove it, whereas Murphy uses his power of “bullshit” to intimidate every single hick in the place and get the information he needs. As for Nolte, his solo contributions mostly consist of him constantly arguing with his girlfriend (Annette O’Toole), his captain (Frank McRae) who never stops screaming (which the actual actor would turn into his stock in trade to the point of parody), and the other cops in his precinct who all seem to regard him as the most royal of fuckups amongst them (and one of them would actually turn out to be the surprise villain in the next film). As for the villains, Landham (a known and much feared right wing psycho in real life, as well as a former porn actor) as the Indian Billy Bear brings the imposing size and presence necessary to the role, along with the creepiest grin imaginable, but it is Remar’s Ganz who is a high octane psychotic animal of the first degree, enhanced by the fact that Remar went method for what was such a stock bad guy role and reportedly went without sleep during filming to increase his character’s on edge attitude. While Ganz is far from being the greatest of action movie villains (mostly due to limited screen time) the actor’s efforts to make him an especially intense scumbag do not go unnoticed, which in turn makes the film itself rather unremittingly dark and grim in tone, with the death scenes themselves played out for maximum serious gruesome impact and Nolte’s foul mouth and vile racial attitude (which is nonetheless daring for the hero of an action movie to have, really unseen since Hackman in French Connection and unheard of since in this day and age for obvious reasons) especially in the early scenes still not concealing the fact that as with most of Walter Hill’s work, the wonderful kinetic energy that he generates onscreen as a filmmaker is downright palpable, with the story and characters constantly in motion even as we see the killers take their former associate’s girlfriend hostage to make him comply, and when things go bad, she disappears from the story on the very real possibility that they might have actually killed her although it is never outright confirmed. And in the end, the mixture works, as even a musical interlude in a bar becomes an enjoyable, toe tapping moment and Nolte’s demeanor of pure stone cold killer instinct at the end is rather chilling. Murphy would go onto somewhat lighter comedic fare as the decade wore on, never losing his ability to make an audience laugh with his bombastic personality and goofy grin, and even more interestingly, it can be said that his “streak” ended with the 1990 sequel, Another 48 Hrs, which at least can be credited with continuing the original story using actual plot elements that were touched upon in the first film to make it wholly legit. But in the end it all comes down to this: With the only possible exception of the first Lethal Weapon, never before nor since was this genre of film more finely and honorably represented on screen, with the pairing of two guys whose chemistry and fearless tendencies to reportedly ad lib their way through their roles in a style that was humorous yet daringly and at times unpleasantly realistic, thus making this the perfect Saturday night shoot em up, boosting the career of one star greatly and introducing the world to the other as the hottest new comedy talent at that point in time, and thus creating a classic for the ages enjoyed by both action and comedy fans alike…
10/10