Beverly Hills Cop

Beverly Hills Cop: When Eddie Murphy Took Over the Movie

Beverly Hills Cop arrived in 1984 as a police action-comedy, but it feels in retrospect like the moment Hollywood discovered a new kind of leading man. Axel Foley, played by Eddie Murphy, is a Detroit cop who travels to Beverly Hills after his best friend Mikey is murdered, following a trail that leads to an apparently respectable art dealer operating behind a far more sinister business.

The plot gives Murphy the framework, but Murphy himself becomes the movie.

Axel is irreverent, fast-talking and almost permanently one step away from getting into trouble. He walks into the polished world of Beverly Hills with absolutely no intention of respecting its rules. He improvises, lies, charms, provokes and occasionally talks his way out of situations that should have ended very differently. The humour comes not simply from jokes but from the collision between Axel's Detroit street-smart personality and Beverly Hills' immaculate sophistication.

Murphy's extraordinary gift is that he never seems to be waiting for the punchline. His reactions, expressions, timing and sheer verbal velocity create comedy almost spontaneously. He can turn an interrogation into a performance, an argument into stand-up and a dangerous situation into something hilariously unpredictable. There is an almost musical rhythm to his dialogue.

But the film would be considerably less effective without its villain.

Steven Berkoff's Victor Maitland is a wonderfully controlled piece of villainy. He does not need to shout or constantly threaten people. He possesses the unnerving confidence of a man accustomed to operating above consequence. His art dealership provides the perfect disguise because Maitland understands the protective power of respectability. He looks like a successful businessman, behaves like one and surrounds himself with the trappings of legitimacy, while underneath it all lies a ruthless criminal operation.

There is something magnetic about Berkoff's presence precisely because he doesn't compete with Murphy's energy. He absorbs it. Axel is movement; Maitland is stillness. Axel talks his way through walls; Maitland seems to believe the walls belong to him. Their contrast gives the film its dramatic electricity.

And then there are Judge Reinhold and John Ashton as Detective Billy Rosewood and Sergeant Taggart. Their increasingly exasperated relationship with Axel provides another layer of comedy. Axel essentially invades their professional lives like a human hurricane, forcing two conventional Beverly Hills cops to abandon their carefully maintained procedures and follow his chaotic instincts.

What makes the film special is the balance. Beneath the jokes is genuine anger over the murder of a friend. Beneath the action is Axel's determination to uncover the truth. And beneath the comedy is the delicious pleasure of watching an outsider walk into an establishment that believes itself untouchable.

Murphy's rise through Beverly Hills Cop was extraordinary. He had already become a major sensation through Saturday Night Live, but this film established that his charisma could carry a major Hollywood production. The result was not simply a hit. It was a cultural phenomenon, turning Murphy into one of the biggest stars of the 1980s.

And Hollywood, as Hollywood tends to do when it smells gold, eventually recognized that Axel Foley was too valuable to leave behind. The success generated sequels and transformed the character into a franchise, proving once again that sometimes a franchise is not designed in advance. It is discovered after audiences fall in love with a character.

That is perhaps the lasting charm of Beverly Hills Cop. The film began with a murder investigation, but ended up creating something much bigger: a screen persona almost inseparable from its actor.

Eddie Murphy did not merely play Axel Foley. For a while, Hollywood belonged to Axel Foley.