Review of 48 Hrs. (1982) by Bill C — 25 Aug 2008

Eddie Murphy was 21 years old, when this movie was released, and he was already a big TV star, on Saturday Night Live. He was naturally funny the way he played up his skits, and seemed like he was legitamately having fun with everything.

Team him up with Nick Nolte, a respected actor in the realm of critical acclaim, and is very capable of playing the straight man.

And together you get an amazing Action-Comedy, "48 Hrs". Reggie Hammond is a petty criminal, who is chosen by hard nosed Jack Cates, to track down an escaped killer, Jack at first wants to work alone, but Reggie, having a relationship with the escapees in question, was brought in to track them down.

Now we typically see this "buddy" concept all the time. But we actually care about both characters, and understand why they're different, and why they can't get along, and why they have there individual demons as well.

You see too many buddy crime-action cop movies today are thrown together just for the sake of lame jokes, and "Oh hey, they're different, it'll work, hahaha". But that's not the case. We can never understand these days, WHY these guys are different, and WHY they hate each other.

The plot here is simple, but the laughs are ever so present, and the two just have a natural chemistry together. Unlike some 20 years later, with Muprhy & De Niro, which should've easily been a winning combo, together in the outrageoulsy awful, "Showtime".