48 Hrs. (1982)

It was credited to be the first Buddy cop film. Usually that genre is about two very different cops working together, but this is about a cop and a convict. The film I’m talking about is the 1982 action comedy 48 HRS. Directed by Walter Hill (The Warriors) and with Joel Silver (The Matrix)making his 1st film as Producer, the film tells about a hard-nose, alcoholic, chain-smoking San Francisco cop named Jack Cates (Nick Nolte) who reluctantly paroles a wisecracking, womanizing convict named Reggie Hammond (Eddie Murphy) for 48 Hours and make him his temporary partner to go after an escaped homicidal convict named Albert Ganz (James Remar – The Warriors), who along with his partner Billy Bear (Sonny Landham - Predator), recover a stash of $500,000 he was after when he was arrested. And as Cates and Hammond race around the clock to find the killers, they discover they have only one thing in common: they’d both kill to find the bad guys…if they don’t kill each other first. The film also stars Frank McRae (Last Action Hero) as S.F.P.D. Captain Haden, Annette O’Toole (TV’s Smallville) as Cates’ girlfriend Elaine, David Patrick Kelly (The Warriors) as Ganz’s old partner Luther, Brion James (Blade Runner) as Det. Sgt. Ben Kehoe, and Denise Crosby (TV’s Star Trek: The Next Generation) as Ganz’s girlfriend Sally. The role of Reggie Hammond was originally intended to be played by Gregory Hines, then Richard Pryor, Howard E. Rollins, and a young Denzel Washington. Even Clint Eastwood wanted to play Hammond, while he was originally intended to play Cates. Instead, the role went to a then 21 year old Eddie Murphy, who at the time was starring on NBC’s Saturday Night Live and making his feature film debut that earned him his first Golden Globe nomination for Best Acting Debut - Male. Reggie Hammond was originally named Willie Biggs, but Murphy felt that was too stereotypical of a black man's name and changed it to Reggie Hammond. The film’s original premise, which was came upped by one of the film’s producers Lawrence Gordon, was about a criminal kidnapping the daughter of the Governor of Louisiana and strapped dynamite to her head and threatens to blow her up in 48 hours if the ransom was not met. The meanest cop goes to the worst prison in the state and gets out the most vicious criminal for his knowledge of the kidnapper who was his cellmate. By coincidence to the film’s title, the word "Fuck" is used 48 times in its various forms during the course of the film. The film’s best scene is when Murphy shakes down a redneck bar and it ends with him saying “And I want the rest of you cowboys to know something, there's a new sheriff in town. And his name is Reggie Hammond. Y'all be cool. Right on”. The song "The Boys Are Back In Town" by rock & roll band The Busboys is one of the best songs I’ve ever heard and the film’s music composer James Horner (Titanic) won the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for the film’s score. When it was released on December 8th, 1982, 48 Hrs. became an enormous box office success and went on to become the seventh highest grossing film of 1982 with a gross of $4,369,868 in its opening weekend and $78,868,508 overall at the domestic box office. 48 HRS. Is one of the greatest action comedies of the 80’s, and it’s a favorite to all movie lovers. In the words of Reggie Hammond: “Y’all be cool. Right On!”