‘Come on in and experience some of my bullshit...’
The buddy cop movie is a formula as old as time. Beverly Hills Cop, Lethal Weapon, Bad Boys, I could go on. 48 Hrs is cut from the same cloth as those mentioned, particularly Lethal Weapon, but it’s grittier. Grimier. Edgier. And in Nick Nolte and Eddie Murphy, it boasts two electric leads…
Jack Cates (Nolte) is a hard-nosed, hard-drinking cop who has got no time for any shit. Reggie Hammond (Murphy – making his theatrical debut) is a career criminal who is paroled for two days in order to help the SFPD track down a cold-blooded killer. For some reason. Despite racial tension and Cates being drunk as shit the whole time, the two unlikely bedfellows make for a pretty good team.
Not quite a buddy cop movie then as only one of our leads is a cop and they definitely aren’t buddies. Watching 48 Hrs in 2022 is an odd experience. Hollywood has become so sanitised in recent years that the casual racial slurs and misogyny inherent in this film are truly shocking in today’s more culturally sensitive world. It is worth remembering; however, that this is a film that deals with the dark underbelly of San Francisco. These characters are criminals, hustlers and thieves. Even Nolte’s grizzled cop is only a lost badge away from being a low-life. It is refreshing to return to a time when cinema was allowed to be a reflection of life – both the good and the bad. Anyway, that’s enough shouting at clouds for now…
48 Hrs is an interesting concept, but it is a film that lacks an effective big bad, and it also coasts too much on the undoubted star power of its leads. While that is no terrible thing when the actors in question are Nick Nolte and Eddie Murphy, the workmanlike direction and boilerplate script ensures that Walter Hill’s film will forever reside in the shadow of more successful buddy cop movies. That being said, there is no denying that 48 Hrs is a film that will delight fans of the genre.
A moderate success.