48 HRS

From AwardAnnals

Reviews

Amazon.com

Before the action-oriented “buddy movie” formula settled into place in the 1980s and 1990s with the Lethal Weapon films, Walter Hill’s 48 HRS. presented a much more irreverent and politically incorrect version of the genre. Eddie Murphy made an auspicious film debut alongside veteran Nick Nolte’s consummate performance as a worn cop. Murphy plays a convict on a two-day furlough from prison to help capture his former partner (James Remar). The intense animosity between his character and Nolte’s impatient detective is rude and violent—albeit in a comic way—and the film’s racist and sexist banter is so ubiquitous that some viewers might be turned off. (This early, raw Murphy is not the Murphy of The Nutty Professor.) Then again, sometimes deliberate overkill is funny in itself, which is certainly closer to Hill’s intention. There are a couple of scenes for the ages in this film, especially Murphy’s single-handed shutdown of the action in a redneck bar. —Tom Keogh

Barnes and Noble

While this dark, often violent, and hilarious film from director Walter Hill will always be remembered as the one that launched Eddie Murphy’s movie career, it may be even more significant as the prototype for visceral, R-rated buddy comedies. After a hair-raising opening shoot-out scene that leaves two cops dead, Hill sets his oddball pairing off and running. In order to track down the shooters, grizzled detective Jack Cates (Nick Nolte) springs their ex-partner from prison on a 48-hour pass. The wisecracking con, Reggie Hammond (Murphy), is less than enthused about the assignment, and Nolte and Murphy’s razor-edged verbal (and physical) friction during the investigation quickly becomes the picture’s centerpiece. Murphy’s angry glower, street-smart swagger, and machine-gun delivery—witness the now-legendary redneck bar scene—is undeniably some of his most effective screen work. Still, it is the strategically fleshed-out juxtaposition of Nolte and Murphy’s characters that gives their improbable partnership its explosive comedic punch. Of all the cop-buddy shoot-’em-ups that have followed, such as the various Lethal Weapon and Rush Hour films, none has so effectively bottled the spark that Hill managed to capture between his two leads in this definitive action/comedy. Matthew Grimm