Probably Unanswerable Questions
Is Jack Cates a terrible cop or an awful cop? Why is Jack Cates still lovable? Is Kehoe ruined by Another 48 Hours? Who won the Jack and Reggie fist fight?
In the discussion (6)
Approx. transcript time · 01:00:49Read transcript
- Terrible cop or awful cop: he cannot drive, cannot keep a partner, is racist, is a terrible boyfriend with no respect for the maitre d' profession, got two cops killed with his gun, makes springing a random crazy person his plan, thinks a Zagnut bar is a meal for a furloughed prisoner, and loses the bus; Eddie may have eaten surf and turf during his missing thirteen hours, which is why he is broke at Roman's; terrible cop is the answer.
- Why one host still loves Jack Cates, the irascible racist with a heart of gold, has no answer; the archetype of the grizzled, unlucky-in-love, smoking, drinking, beaten-down cop like Sonny Crockett works every time, and Mindhunter should have cast that type instead of the miscast Jonathan Groff.
- Is Kehoe ruined because he is the villain of Another 48 Hours; one host finds the sequel entertaining despite a heavier Eddie Murphy; Nolte told the A.V. Club that his idea for the sequel was a far more racist story in which Cates had become a full-blown alcoholic in a fleabag motel and Reggie came to get him out and took control, which Eddie rejected; they then did it for the money.
- The sequel was easy and they overthought it, keeping Reggie and Jack antagonistic when they should be friends; it should have been five years later with Reggie a cop, or both private investigators, as partners still busting each other, either solving a case or facing Gans's brother, the only smart part of the real sequel, which could have run to six films; Metro with Michael Rapport (as transcribed) is essentially 48 Hours 3.
- A defense of Another 48 Hours as one of the last bastions of action comedy, though bloated with bikers, meth and shootouts; Fletch Lives, Rocky V and Another 48 Hours all arrived within eighteen months in a dark period, explained by the theory that Hollywood's cocaine years from 1977 to 1986 ended with Len Bias's death and left five years of horrible movies.
- Who won the Nolte and Eddie fight: Eddie was winning before the cops showed up, but Cates comes on strong and lands the last six or eight punches after starting dirty; one scores it 10-9 Reggie 'because I believe in justice', a punch count has it almost even, and the other scores it 10-9 Murphy but expects Nolte to wear him down in the next round.