Beverly Hills Cop (1984)

In 1984, actor/comedian Eddie Murphy left NBC’s Saturday Night Live after four years (1980-1984) and went on to focus on his movie career after appearing in the hit movies: 1982’S 48 HRS. And 1983’S TRADING PLACES. In that same year, he starred in his first leading role that shot him into international stardom, that was originally to be played by Sylvester Stallone, in Producers Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer’s Paramount Pictures production called BEVERLY HILLS COP. Directed by Martin Brest (Scent of a Woman, Midnight Run), The film tells the story of Axel Foley (Eddie Murphy), A young, wisecracking but street-smart Detective from Detroit, who travels to Beverly Hills, California to solve his best friend’s murder, but finds himself dealing with the very different culture that Beverly Hills has. The film also stars Judge Reinhold (Fast Times at Ridgemont High) as Detective William ‘Billy’ Rosewood, John Ashton (Midnight Run) as Sgt. John Taggert, Lisa Eilbacher (Live Wire) as Axel’s best friend Jeannette ‘Jenny’ Summers, Ronny Cox (Deliverance) as Lt. Andrew Bogomil, Steven Berkoff (007 - Octopussy) as Victor Maitland, James Russo (Once Upon a Time in America) as Axel’s doomed best friend Michael ‘Mikey’ Tandino, Jonathan Banks (48 Hrs.) as Zack, Bronson Pinchot (TV’s Perfect Strangers) as Serge, Paul Reiser (TV’s Mad About You) as Detective Jeffrey Friedman, and real life former Detroit Police Detective Gilbert R. Hill as Axel’s trash talking boss Inspector Douglas Todd. I started to watch this movie when my parents had it on VHS, and I would watch it over and over again, and I loved it. As I said earlier that it was be starring Sylvester Stallone, The movie was written for him, with the character of Michael Tandino being his brother, Jenny Summers being his love interest, and did a lot of work on the screenplay by making it as a much bigger action movie. But two weeks before filming was to start, Stallone was suddenly out and Murphy was in, prompting massive rewrites. However, Stallone would later use the same ideas for his 1986 film COBRA. After watching ARMAGEDDON and ENEMY OF THE STATE when I was ten, and by the time I was to middle school, I became a big fan of producer Jerry Bruckheimer, but I never noticed that he was one of the producers of this film when I first watched it. I love the famous Axel F. song that composer Harold Faltermeyer made for the film, and I listen to it sometimes on my iPod. Filmed in Detroit, Michigan and between Los Angeles and Beverly Hills, California, with a budget of $15 million, the film was released on December 5th, 1984, opening at #1 at the box office with $15,214,805. It was well received by film critics and it went on to become one of the best films of that year, grossing over $316,360,478 worldwide. Not only was it one of the best movies of 1984, next to GHOSTBUSTERS, INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM, and THE TERMINATOR, BEVERLY HILLS COP is one of the greatest Hollywood action comedies of all time. And if you haven’t seen it, I am so recommending it for you to see it!