48 Hours (48 Hrs.) (1982)

Director: Walter Hill

Starring: Nick Nolte, Eddie Murphy, Annette O’Toole

A hard-nosed cop reluctantly teams up with a wise-cracking criminal temporarily paroled to him in order to track down a killer.

Usually when I review a movie, I sit there with my pen and notebook and make lots of notes. With ’48 Hours’ (stylized as 48 Hrs.) I hardly made any notes. I honestly can’t comprehend what the fuss was about in 1982, and why this movie became a hit.

’48 Hours’ reminds me of an episode from a crime TV Series (like Hill Street Blues, TJ Hooker, etc) and there’s nothing memorable about it. Ask me in a year from now what I remember about ’48 Hours’ and I’ll probably be thinking I haven’t seen it yet.

The film revolves around cop Jack Cates (Nick Nolte) who needs the help of a criminal, Reggie (Eddie Murphy) to catch criminals Ganz and Bear. Reggie is released from prison into Jack’s custody and is allowed to go into the streets with him, and even pretend to be a cop, mind you!!!! There is no credibility here whatsoever. In fact, the premise in its entirety had me raising an eyebrow.

Story is Reggie, Ganz, Billy and Luther robbed a drug dealer of $500,000. Three years later the money is STILL in the trunk of a car which is STILL parked in a parking garage. Oh, whatever…

There are hardly any mentionable action sequences, or hardly anything memorable for that matter – apart from Eddie Murphy’s performance. He is a show-stealer and I believe the film would not have been such a big success had he not been cast. The dialogue is filled with foul language, and the script a bit confusing with all the details (that doesn’t make sense).

If you want to see Eddie Murphy in a cop/crime movie, rather watch ‘Beverly Hills Cop’, which is much better.

’48 Hours’ earned a staggering $78.9 million on a $12 million budget. It was followed by ‘Another 48 Hours’.

Would I watch it again? Yawn, what?