Beverly Hills Cop

Recommendation

I ended up watching this because it came up in a framed and I realized that it’s one of those movies I’ve heard referenced a million times but haven’t seen.

First and foremost, I recommended this if you’re looking for an action movie. I wouldn’t say it’s like one of the best of all time or anything, but it is a well structured action film. The action scenes are entertaining enough and the story moves along quickly enough that it keeps you from feeling bored.

Another small reason to suggest this movie is that there are several piece of general pop culture that this movie introduced. If you, like me, like to make connections between media and pop culture, then I would say add this to your list for that reason too!

The only other thing I want to mention is that it’s definitely a hard R rating. That’s not really an issue or anything, but going in I didn’t look it up and since it’s a name I’d heard a lot before, I sort of assumed it was made for a more general audience, but that’s not the case.

Thoughts

Spoilers ahead…

Classic Bad Guy Characters

The bad guys in this movie are all great. What I mean is that the movie understands that it is an action film. It’s aiming to be fun, and as such it’s less art and more something that someone like Martin Scorsese might describe as an amusement park ride.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that so long as that’s the type of movie you are setting out to make. I personally enjoy Marvel movies and the Fast and the Furious franchise because I know that the movies aren’t really trying to be art. They’re fundamentally made to make money, but the way they do that is by being entertaining.

The main boss character, Victor Maitland, is just pure evil and barely tries to hide it. He is able to use the fact that he’s rich and white and gets away with literally throwing Axel out a window in the first scene where he is introduced.

His main lieutenant (played by Breaking Bad’s Jonathan Banks) is also a great bad guy for this type of action film. He’s just a thug through and through and is really good at looking dangerous and intimidating.

I appreciate that this movie has purely villainous bad guys because it helps you sit back and enjoy the action. This is definitely more in the “popcorn” category of movie than the critical thought provoking category, but like I said, that’s what it’s setting out to be. By leaning into this style of character, they do a better job of making a fun movie since you can easily get behind the “good guys”.

Axel F

Throughout the film they use the song Axel F as background music. I found it super distracting every time it came on because it’s become almost a meme at this point. It is used when people want to evoke an 80’s vibe.

This movie made the song popular; the main character is Axel Foley so there can be no doubt the two are linked very directly. It’s just a banger from the deep 80’s which is why it’s used as a meme, so I can’t really dock them points for that!

Random Continuity Issue

This doesn’t really belong anywhere, but one thing that snapped me out of the movie for a minute was a bad continuity error near the beginning. (Note the Axel F in the background at the beginning haha)

In the first 30 seconds of the scene, he is carrying a big basket of flowers. This ends up being his excuse to go up and talk to the bad guy for the first time, but when he walks into the office he doesn’t have the basket anymore. It’s just completely unexplained.

He could easily have either had them in his hand in the scene or have dropped them outside, but by not showing that it shook me out of the experience and reminded me I was watching a movie. We can give him the benefit of the doubt that he did put it down somewhere, but it’s distracting because it’s not explicitly shown.

The Director (Martin Brest)

I hadn’t heard of the director before so I looked him up and found some interesting things. He has only directed a handful of films, but virtually all of them were well received (at least on IMDb where they all clock in above 7.0) with one exception.

The only one I knew of besides Beverly Hills Cop was Meet Joe Black which is another movie I haven’t seen but have been meaning to. It’s basically in the exact same category for me as Beverly Hills Cop was because I know the name from various references but have never seen it. He directed Midnight Run which I’ve heard of and Scent of a Woman which I don’t know, but which clocks in at 8.0 on IMDb!

Curious about his other films, I decided to check his most recent credit and saw he directed one in 2003 called Gigli. I figured if he hadn’t made one since then he must’ve retired, and it seems like that one was a career ender. It’s 2.6 on IMDb which I think is honestly the lowest score I’ve ever seen. Rotten tomatoes gave it a 6%. If you look up the plot it’s not hard to guess why, but apparently the acting and script in general are also terrible. It swept the Razzies that year.

It’s interesting to me that someone can make back to back movies that are critically and generally well received, but then suddenly make a completely tone deaf, horrible movie. It’s not even like he made one or two well received movies; he made 6 by my count. Then suddenly he just drops one of the worst movies ever.