Rating of
2/4
"Beverly Hills Cop" by Yojimbo
Yojimbo - wrote on 01/16/12
A streetwise cop from the projects of Detroit goes to Beverly Hills to investigate the execution-style murder of a childhood friend. Beverly Hills Cop was one of the first wave of 80s action-comedies that conquered the American box office and is still a formula followed to this day. It's the story of a stranger in a strange land as the kid from the ghettos is amused and bemused by the playthings of the idle rich while seeing how the other half live...kind of a cop version of lifestyles of the rich and famous. There's actually very little to it; the plot is little more than a simplistic collection of cop show cliches and the film relies entirely on Eddie Murphy's smart-mouthed charm. The jokes aren't particularly witty or even funny and even the action is very thin on the ground; what holds it together is Murphy himself and Harold Faltermeyer's electro-pop soundtrack which has dated far better than the vast majority of its contemporaries. It will probably appeal to undemanding 80s nostalgics but it's far too insubstantial to be of much interest for anyone looking for gritty cop drama.
