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The Rewatchables ·

48 Hrs.

year 1982decade 80sdirector Walter Hillgenre Actiongenre Buddygenre Thrillergenre Comedy
host Bill Simmonshost Chris Ryan
All 14 categories

Most Rewatchable Scene · 21:27

The Torchy's scene

The field is narrowed to the hotel shootout, now with the bonus of the Breaking Bad actor, Torchy's, Jack visiting Eddie in prison, the Reggie Hammond and Jack Cates fight, and the Busboys scene where Eddie phones Jack from Roman's; a tangent recalls the Busboys' two songs, their Delirious opener and Eddie trying to prop them up.

It has to be Torchy's: the setup and the scene itself never get old, from the drink-order exchange to 'I'm your worst fucking nightmare', one of the best four minutes ever in a movie; the cutaways to Nolte deciding whether to jump in and glancing up when the glass breaks, the patron who ran because he is on parole, and the whole thing as an assertion of power over a room with nothing like it in movie history.

The Neil McCauley “A Book about Metals” Award for Best Line from the Movie · 59:43

"Bullshit. You're too fucking stupid to have a job"

Candidates include Reggie asking Jack for a bedtime story and the profane reply, Reggie's crude line about three years in prison, Jack's line that class is not something you buy, answered by Reggie in his five-hundred-dollar suit that he looks good anyway, and Jack's 'this sucks' monologue about a maniac killing people with his gun, which crosses lines and has not aged well but was once on a host's answering machine.

The film

48 Hrs. (1982)

Directed by Walter Hill · Action

97 minutes

IMDb
Cast

Selected cast credits · Film reference

Nick Nolte San Francisco Police Inspector Jack Cates
Nick Nolte San Francisco Police Inspector Jack Cates
Eddie Murphy Reggie Hammond
Eddie Murphy Reggie Hammond
Annette O'Toole Elaine Marshall
Annette O'Toole Elaine Marshall
Frank McRae Captain Haden
Frank McRae Captain Haden
James Remar Albert Ganz
James Remar Albert Ganz
David Patrick Kelly Luther Kelly
David Patrick Kelly Luther Kelly
Sonny Landham Billy Bear
Sonny Landham Billy Bear
Brion James Inspector Ben Kehoe
Brion James Inspector Ben Kehoe
Kerry Sherman Rosalie
Kerry Sherman Rosalie
Jonathan Banks Inspector Algren
Jonathan Banks Inspector Algren
James Keane Inspector Van Zant
James Keane Inspector Van Zant
Tara King Frizzy
Tara King Frizzy
Margot Rose Casey
Olivia Brown Candy
Jack Thibeau Inspector Lloyd
Clare Nono Ruth
Sandy Martin Officer Kramer
Chris Mulkey Officer Bellis
John Hauk Henry Wong
Peter Jason Torchy's Bartender
John Dennis Johnston Torchy's Patron
Ola Ray Vroman’s Dancer

Everything from the episode

In the order the hosts got to it. Open a row for the discussion.

13:20

Roger Ebert's review
In the discussion (1)
Approx. transcript time · 00:13:20Read transcript
  • Ebert gave the film three and a half stars and wrote about Eddie Murphy's Torchy's scene (transcribed as 'torture scene') that sometimes an actor becomes a star in a single scene, as Jack Nicholson did in Easy Rider and Faye Dunaway did looking out at Warren Beatty in Bonnie and Clyde; the hosts add that the theater felt it in the moment and that the movie itself knows it.
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21:27

Most Rewatchable Scene

The Torchy's scene

The Torchy's scene

In the discussion (6)
Approx. transcript time · 00:21:27Read transcript
  • The field is narrowed to the hotel shootout, now with the bonus of the Breaking Bad actor, Torchy's, Jack visiting Eddie in prison, the Reggie Hammond and Jack Cates fight, and the Busboys scene where Eddie phones Jack from Roman's; a tangent recalls the Busboys' two songs, their Delirious opener and Eddie trying to prop them up.
  • It has to be Torchy's: the setup and the scene itself never get old, from the drink-order exchange to 'I'm your worst fucking nightmare', one of the best four minutes ever in a movie; the cutaways to Nolte deciding whether to jump in and glancing up when the glass breaks, the patron who ran because he is on parole, and the whole thing as an assertion of power over a room with nothing like it in movie history.
  • A comparison to Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, watched with a daughter two weeks earlier as the moment you knew she would be the biggest star in the world; the difference is that other variations of Roberts have come along, while there has still never been another Eddie.
  • The hotel shootout is grimy and gruesome, 'probably 10 too violent' as transcribed, from a 1982 to 1983 stretch when Death Wish sequels and horror pushed the envelope; Gans is written as so psychotic that he loves shooting cops, not as a serial killer, just a convict who hates cops.
  • For the prison visit there is a deleted scene sometimes restored when basic TV needs to stretch the runtime, Nolte walking and talking about rolling the dice on this crazy Gans before seeing Reggie; it is surprising it was cut since the film is so short, with so much spent on the two early shootouts that it is essentially a fifty-minute movie once Eddie Murphy arrives.
  • The Busboys apology scene is beautifully edited with great music, Reggie happy at a bar with women after spending the whole movie trying to get laid while Jack veers his 1964 Cadillac around corners and rams into things; Torchy's is confirmed as the pick before moving on.
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25:55

Casting What-Ifs

Clint Eastwood and Richard Pryor nearly made it in the late seventies; Jeff Bridges turned down Jack Cates; Gregory H...

Clint Eastwood and Richard Pryor nearly made it in the late seventies; Jeff Bridges turned down Jack Cates; Gregory Hines was the first choice for Reggie; Sylvester Stallone and Burt Reynolds reportedly turned down Jack Cates; the studio nearly fired Eddie Murphy days into the shoot

In the discussion (5)
Approx. transcript time · 00:25:55Read transcript
  • In the late seventies the film almost happened with Clint Eastwood and Richard Pryor until Eastwood did Escape from Alcatraz instead; that version would surely be far less racist and would become a Richard Pryor movie in the Brewster's Millions or Stir Crazy mold, probably sillier, and Pryor was coming apart on sets then, setting himself on fire in what the hosts date as 1982.
  • Jeff Bridges turned down Jack Cates because he did not want another cop movie; nobody could be better than Nolte, though a method Bridges putting on twenty pounds and going dark might have been pretty good, and Nolte is still permanently Jack Cates in a way an Ed Harris version would not have been.
  • Gregory Hines was the first choice for Reggie and dropped out to do Cotton Club, prompting a Running Scared tangent: a total 48 Hours ripoff in which Hines is really funny, and whose Florida Keys stretch with Michael McDonald is the movie one host wanted the whole time; Hines would have been pretty good, obviously not Eddie Murphy good.
  • Sly Stallone and Burt Reynolds allegedly both turned down Jack Cates, the kind of claim attached to every movie of the era; Reynolds could have taken the part to a bad place and might have ruined the movie, though Longest Yard-era Reynolds was good in tight roles like this.
  • Earlier, the studio nearly fired Eddie three or four days into the shoot because they did not think he was funny enough, with Michael Eisner running Paramount; called a good what-if that would have been a bad decision.
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28:30

What’s Aged the Best?

Young Eddie Murphy's performance as Reggie Hammond

Young Eddie Murphy's performance as Reggie Hammond

In the discussion (6)
Approx. transcript time · 00:28:30Read transcript
  • Nominees are young Eddie Murphy, James Remar as Gans, and James Horner's soundtrack crossed with San Francisco; the score is one of the all-timers, and some of it was reused in Commando three years later to one host's annoyance; Horner likes his steel drums and scored much of one host's movie childhood, including, as recalled, Alien, Aliens and Terminator.
  • The three-minute cue before the subway stakeout, when they wait outside the parking garage in the morning, with the clarinet, is wanted as the theme for the BS podcast, with an appeal to James Horner's estate to hand it over. — Bill Simmons
  • The Torchy's scene has aged phenomenally; the Police's Roxanne is a time capsule that would have been a baffling intro if the song had fallen out of popularity, but it turned out to be one of the most iconic songs of the era; a Walkman-with-microphone memory and the thought that Dexys Midnight Runners there could have gone very wrong.
  • The Busboys have aged really well, leaving the question of why they never made it; the final scene, when Reggie finally gets laid and comes out to find Jack waiting with the car, the exchange about the money ending with Reggie wanting only enough for a new car, and Reggie stealing Jack's lighter and getting caught, is incredibly well written; the pick is Reggie, the Eddie Murphy performance, and the other agrees on young Eddie.
  • A bar-band tangent: every city had its own Huey Lewis ripoff, like the Young Rumblers in Philly, and the Busboys songs all seem to be about going downtown for new shoes or being back in town, written to land a Friday residency at a place like Torchy's or Roman's rather than to write the White Album; both songs could have been Blues Brothers numbers; the country band at Torchy's was pretty good too, and young Eddie is reaffirmed.
  • Without stepping on the Gans section to come, James Remar is one of the great psycho-on-the-loose characters, maybe number one among realistic ones, a man a prostitute character says prefers shooting cops to sex and who has been in jail three years; competition is thin, perhaps Tommy Lee Jones in Under Siege ten years later, since eighties villains were slick businessmen like Alan Rickman in Die Hard.
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32:55

What’s Aged the Worst?

The rampant racism; the treatment of women

The rampant racism; the treatment of women

In the discussion (8)
Approx. transcript time · 00:32:55Read transcript
  • Annette O'Toole's girlfriend could have used a couple more scenes, though the film commits to her maitre d' job and shows her frustrated at the restaurant repeatedly; not seeing Eddie for twenty-five minutes, revealed like the shark in Jaws, is a weird choice in retrospect, although it grounds the desperation of turning to a federal prisoner after a prison break and a cop shooting within twenty-four hours.
  • Reggie Hammond's stuntman is visibly not Eddie Murphy in two cutaways of the fight, looking twenty years older; the bleeped basic-cable version makes this one of the most savage cable movies, with Midnight Run the Mount Rushmore of films that cannot air on TNT; watching it knowing what happens in Another 48 Hours has not aged well, though one host does not really mind the sequel and is told to save that for the end.
  • One host names the rampant racism the winner, saying it gets worse every year and wondering how this can be a favorite movie; the other says the treatment of women has aged worst, beyond Annette O'Toole's flat storyline: prostitutes, Jack choking Billy Bear's girlfriend at the end to learn whether he is upstairs, two women hit, and topless women on beds as eighties set dressing; conceded as great points.
  • The film's one bad influence on a host was introducing the word 'trim', which had a short life in American vernacular and left that host alone on it; the other was thirteen and did not know what was going on, but hearing Eddie Murphy swear in a movie was part of the greatness of seeing it in 1982.
  • Eddie is the greatest profanity user of all time, like watching Jordan shoot, with Pryor the only comparison; a Profanity Mount Rushmore draws Tupac, George Carlin, Sam Jackson and Pesci, and listeners are invited to send nominations to the mailbag.
  • The racism leads to maybe the worst apology in movie history after Jack's slurs, some rarely heard; Nolte reportedly kept proposing slurs to Eddie Murphy on set, to Eddie's bafflement, and a 2008 documentary has Nolte saying much of their dialogue was improvised; Jack's apology that he was just doing his job keeping Reggie down meets Reggie's reply that doing your job doesn't explain everything, then a laugh and friendship, and Jack tells his captain Reggie has more integrity than any partner he has had.
  • Whether the movie teaches anything about race relations or just rides a wow factor; the answer is that in 1982 America was still racist and a lovably irascible racist cop like Jack Cates was realistic, on the heels of the Detroit and Watts riots and the 1975 Massachusetts busing riots; it made sense for the character but ages badly because the audience is meant to really like him.
  • One host still likes Cates despite his bad acts, being so used to them, though a fresh viewing shocks; later films such as Last Boy Scout, Die Hard 3 and Rush Hour soften the older cop into racially tinged condescension followed by a confrontation, and nothing dealt with it this explicitly; a comparison to rooting for Neil McCauley in Heat, and curiosity about how viewers under twenty-five would react, since Reggie defuses it in the bar scene.
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40:50

Half-Assed Internet Research

James Remar skipped sleep before shooting to look psychotic; Jack Cates inspired Sonny Crockett; two deleted scenes; ...

James Remar skipped sleep before shooting to look psychotic; Jack Cates inspired Sonny Crockett; two deleted scenes; Reggie Hammond was originally named Willie Biggs; the 1964 Cadillac is now owned by Vanilla Ice; Larry Gross's on-set diaries; Sonny Landham's career from adult films to Kentucky politics

In the discussion (7)
Approx. transcript time · 00:40:50Read transcript
  • James Remar often went without sleep before shooting to give Gans a more psychotic look, which the hosts believe, joking that it came from hanging out with Nick Nolte; one host lived in Remar's LA neighborhood in the early 2000s, saw him having coffee with his dog and always expected him to start shooting people; Jack Cates was apparently the inspiration for Sonny Crockett in Miami Vice, which now makes sense.
  • Two deleted scenes are mentioned, one with Cates and his girlfriend and an extended Roman's scene with Eddie Murphy dancing, possibly a third Busboys song; Reggie's bit confronting a man whispering to his 'wife' is quoted, and the Roman's bartender's 'come here often, Holmes' greeting is loved.
  • Reggie Hammond was initially named Willie Biggs until Eddie thought it too cliche and borderline racist and got it changed; the 1964 blue Cadillac has been restored, painted silver and is now owned by Vanilla Ice, which stuns the hosts; screenwriter Larry Gross kept diaries during the shoot that went online about ten years ago with many set stories.
  • The diaries stop after about five entries but reveal Sonny Landham as a maniac who had to be bailed out of jail, alongside crazy Nick Nolte stories; a Sonny Landham research subcategory follows: he plays Billy Bear, was a former pornographic film actor and moved to mainstream films via Walter Hill.
  • Landham's filmography is recited: a cop in The Warriors, then the really underrated Southern Comfort, then Poltergeist and 48 Hours in 1982, followed by Predator, Action Jackson and Lockup (as transcribed).
  • The Southern Comfort recommendation, telling anyone who has not seen it to check it out, is directed at the listeners. — Chris Ryan
  • He is good in Lockup; his character names are enjoyed, Hunter in Southern Comfort, Billy Soul in Predator (as transcribed), Billy Bear here, Mr. Quick in Action Jackson, and of his Lockup character name, a slur, the remark as transcribed is 'So that one still aged well', tone unresolved; he later ran for office in Kentucky several times, once for governor and once against Mitch McConnell as a libertarian Senate candidate, and died this year.
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44:37

The Dion Waiters Award for Best Heat Check Performance

James Remar as Gans; Frank McRae as Captain Hayden

James Remar as Gans; Frank McRae as Captain Hayden

In the discussion (4)
Approx. transcript time · 00:44:37Read transcript
  • Not since the Heat episode have there been this many nominees: James Remar as Gans; Sonny Landham as Billy Bear, whose box score is likened to Ben Wallace in 2006, seventeen rebounds and five blocks in nine minutes, plus forty; and Jonathan Banks as the cop who gets shot, with the plea not to give Gans the gun.
  • Brian James as Kehoe (transcribed 'Keough') is hated because he becomes the bad guy in Another 48 Hours; Olivia Brown, future Miami Vice star, plays the girl who falls for Reggie Hammond in a minute.
  • One host names James Remar the winner; the other disputes it and goes with Frank McRae as Captain Hayden, quoting his suspension-and-review-board tirade; a tangent on great angry captains includes Cobb in Beverly Hills Cop; McRae is a great eighties cop captain who played the cop in about five movies and surprisingly never demands Jack's gun and badge here.
  • The Remar pick stands and the choice is respected as what makes the category great; the objection is that Gans is so evil, though believably and never-not evil, killing something like nine cops over five hundred thousand dollars because he likes it.
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46:52

Apex Mountain

James Remar; Frank McRae; Eddie Murphy (the other host puts his peak at Beverly Hills Cop); Walter Hill (states The L...

James Remar; Frank McRae; Eddie Murphy (the other host puts his peak at Beverly Hills Cop); Walter Hill (states The Long Riders, then picks this one; speakers not separable)

In the discussion (5)
Approx. transcript time · 00:46:52Read transcript
  • Eddie Murphy: one host says yes, ahead of Beverly Hills Cop; the other thinks Cop was his Apex Mountain as a better overall performance carried alone, answered with the forty-and-twenty-five box score he puts up here; after Cop, without Nolte or Dan Aykroyd beside him, he and Michael Jackson were the two biggest stars in the world, and both films rank above Trading Places.
  • Nick Nolte: no; Blue Chips and Prince of Tides are floated, Prince of Tides for success, North Dallas 40 as probably his best performance since you believe he played in the NFL, plus Rich Man, Poor Man watched by fifty million, Cape Fear and Who Will Stop the Rain; a lot of really good work but nothing definitively incredible, so no apex.
  • Walter Hill: The Long Riders, his Western about the James gang from around the same time, is raised first, but this film is called very high and 'this one' is the answer given; San Francisco is a great movie character rarely maximized like this, with Mrs. Doubtfire, Pacific Heights, Dirty Harry and Bullitt as other San Francisco movies, and the film captures the city's old cow-town backwater quality.
  • Sonny Landham: no, Predator is his apex, cutting his chest with a knife and waiting for the predator, on the same bill as Schwarzenegger, Carl Weathers and Ventura, his political mentor; James Remar: one hundred percent yes, though one host's wife wanted Sex and the City named instead.
  • Remar is also great in The Warriors, and Gans has an ignominious ending, roughing up the female cop for no reason, which flips the audience from liking a badass to recoiling; he works constantly, turning up in What Lies Beneath at two in the morning; Olivia Brown's apex was Miami Vice; Frank McRae topped out here.
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50:10

Unintentional Comedy Award

Nolte's look into the camera after Reggie falls asleep in the car; Reggie sleeping in the open-top car on a cold San ...

Nolte's look into the camera after Reggie falls asleep in the car; Reggie sleeping in the open-top car on a cold San Francisco night after the fight, fed only a Zagnut; Jack's apology

In the discussion (2)
Approx. transcript time · 00:50:10Read transcript
  • There is not a lot of unintentional comedy because the intentional comedy succeeds; the one moment comes after Jack and Reggie beat each other up and the bathroom confrontation where Reggie finally talks: they wait for the car in the parking garage, Reggie beds down in the back seat asking Jack for a bedtime story and gets a profane refusal; an aside notes Frank McRae once played defensive tackle for the Bears.
  • The camera then stays on Nolte, who takes a hit from his flask, looks around and stares into the lens before the cut, probably just drunk; the other host's picks are the idea that Eddie Murphy could sleep in an open-top sedan on a thirty-degree San Francisco night after a fight with Nolte having eaten only a Zagnut, and Jack's apology exchange, hilarious because Eddie accepts it.
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51:42

Picking Nits

Jack handing over his gun; why Luther left the money in Reggie's car for years; Rosalie vanishes; no manhunt for Gans...

Jack handing over his gun; why Luther left the money in Reggie's car for years; Rosalie vanishes; no manhunt for Gans; the $957 suit; the lost twelve hours; Jack's dates with Annette O'Toole's character; Reggie leaving the hotel for Roman's; the easy return to Billy Bear's apartment; the Roman's girl; the night's timeline

In the discussion (10)
Approx. transcript time · 00:51:42Read transcript
  • Jack Cates giving up his gun when Jonathan Banks's cop has been shot but is not dead is not 1982 police procedure, and since these men have already shot cops one more hostage should not be enough; it should be a Mexican standoff.
  • Why was Reggie's car in the parking garage so long, and if Luther had the keys why did he wait for Gans to break out of prison instead of taking the money any time, and why does he have the keys at all; Rosalie screams when Luther is shot on the bus and is never seen again, presumably killed, perhaps cut because the movie had been hard enough on women.
  • Why there is no bigger manhunt for Gans after he kills two cops, unless it is the early-eighties feel of a city under budget siege; only Cates seems to be on it, and when he phones for messages after parting from Reggie at the subway the station of thirty people is business as usual.
  • Whether Reggie's suit would really cost $957, a lot of money then, perhaps a two-thousand-dollar suit adjusted for inflation or even ten thousand; it should have said $457.
  • The morning timeline: they wake, Luther crosses the street and gets the car, the chase leads to the subway and a near shootout, Gans and Billy Bear escape, Jack is nearly arrested by cops who do not know he is a cop, and Reggie runs after the money at about 9:30; the next scene is at night, so Reggie is gone ten to twelve hours before he phones from Roman's.
  • Is anyone worried that Jack has now lost the cop killers twice and lost the man he sprung for forty-eight hours; Reggie follows Luther to the hotel, eight hours pass, and he turns up at Roman's with a gun he somehow acquired, presumably from a friend.
  • The biggest nitpick is Jack making dates with Annette O'Toole's character during a cop-killer investigation, with her complaining that he makes her work too hard at it, which makes her a terrible girlfriend; Reggie leaving the hotel assuming Luther is in for twelve hours instead of hanging outside is an investigative faux pas, and Billy going back to his ex-girlfriend should have been staked out instead of abandoned after thirty seconds.
  • A tally of Jack and Reggie's interactions: a fistfight, Reggie coming clean, sleeping in the car without talking, the morning chase, the split, ten hours apart, Roman's, the bus chase and shooting at the bus; then Frank McRae's captain yells and Jack tells him Reggie has more guts than any partner after about ten minutes together and a stream of racial insults, which is movie magic.
  • Circling back to Billy Bear's apartment the second time is too easy, and if the girls there were harboring Billy why do they call the cops on Jack and Reggie; most importantly, Olivia Brown's character dances with Reggie once and is immediately ready to go across the street with him, paying since he has no money, until he spots Luther; the evening's clock is debated between 7:30, 8 and 10 with Roman's pumping.
  • After the bus crashes and the sheriff yells, there are drinks, Billy Bear, a big fight and Gans shot around two in the morning at a homicide scene, yet Eddie finds the Roman's girl, whose name he may not know, the same night; someone named Zach is asked when San Francisco bars closed in the eighties, and a reconstructed clock from a 7 o'clock Roman's to an 11 o'clock shootout leaves the girl waiting nine hours; a lot of holes.
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58:37

Is This Movie Better With…?

Yes, as Kehoe

Yes, as Kehoe

In the discussion (1)
Approx. transcript time · 00:58:37Read transcript
  • Sure; the obvious role is Billy Bear but you cannot cut Sonny Landham, so young Danny Trejo could be a convict on the opening chain gang or a cop in the precinct, or Jonathan Banks's partner who gets killed; the answer settles on Kehoe, voiced twice, since Trejo could then go evil in Another 48 Hours; it is always a favorite category because no movie has been found that Trejo would not have improved.
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59:43

The Neil McCauley “A Book about Metals” Award for Best Line from the Movie

"Bullshit. You're too fucking stupid to have a job"; "Bullshit and experience is all it takes"

"Bullshit. You're too fucking stupid to have a job"; "Bullshit and experience is all it takes"

In the discussion (2)
Approx. transcript time · 00:59:43Read transcript
  • Candidates include Reggie asking Jack for a bedtime story and the profane reply, Reggie's crude line about three years in prison, Jack's line that class is not something you buy, answered by Reggie in his five-hundred-dollar suit that he looks good anyway, and Jack's 'this sucks' monologue about a maniac killing people with his gun, which crosses lines and has not aged well but was once on a host's answering machine.
  • One host's winner is the Torchy's 'too fucking stupid to have a job' line; the other's pick is different, any mention of the word trim plus Reggie's line that bullshit and experience is all it takes, likened to Brett Brown's remark to Brian Colangelo.
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1:00:49

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? W...

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.
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1:07:10

Who Won the Movie?

Eddie Murphy

Eddie Murphy

In the discussion (1)
Approx. transcript time · 01:07:10Read transcript
Podcast choices
Speaker not identified
Eddie Murphy
Speaker not identified
Eddie Murphy
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More from the conversation

The hosts have not recorded together in about two months; the show's post-1990 rule gets a special exception for the 35th anniversary of one host's favorite movie of all time, and the original trailer plays as a cold open.
Approx. transcript time · 00:00:49Read transcript
This is one host's favorite movie ever despite being indefensibly racist and more so every year since about 1992; a theory that whatever your favorite movie was at thirteen stays your favorite for life, with Predator or Die Hard the other host's thirteen-year-old answer from the three-day video rental era.
Approx. transcript time · 00:02:09Read transcript
Eddie Murphy's rise: an only child watching SNL best-ofs, Eddie as the late breakout of a terrible season six; 1982 had a drought of black stars after Richard Pryor's peak and the seventies shows, and Hollywood had become very white, so a twenty-year-old Eddie was a comet; the film is credited as the first modern buddy-cop movie and has been ripped off more than anything but Die Hard and Halloween.
Approx. transcript time · 00:03:01Read transcript
December 1982 context: Eddie hosted SNL the same week the film opened because Nick Nolte had to cancel; Eddie was like LeBron or Jordan, killing on Letterman; R-rated movies were a reach for kids then and introduced them to profanity, sex and racism, with a Slap Shot memory and a sixth-grade birthday party built around a VHS of Victory.
Approx. transcript time · 00:05:07Read transcript
One host saw it opening Friday in eighth grade at the Avon theater in Stanford, Connecticut (as transcribed), the only time he remembers real electricity in a theater, with the crowd waiting through Eddie's twenty-five-minute absence and erupting at the Roxanne entrance; the other's best crowd was the Rocky IV premiere in Philadelphia, where his father was the Inquirer's movie critic; Rocky II also played like a live fight.
Approx. transcript time · 00:07:29Read transcript
Lawrence Gordon, later of the Gordon and Silver production company, had the original 1971 premise: a Louisiana governor's daughter kidnapped with dynamite strapped to her head and a 48-hour deadline, with the meanest cop springing the most vicious criminal from the worst prison; the idea bounced around for ten years before Nolte and Murphy.
Approx. transcript time · 00:10:03Read transcript
Nick Nolte's career: Rich Man, Poor Man made him an A-lister after Roots, then The Deep with Jackie Bisset and North Dallas 40 before Heartbeat and Cannery Row and the wheels came off amid substances and a Brando-worshiping live-hard ethos; he reportedly drank screwdrivers through the entire shoot and seems fifty-two while about thirty-five, with a flask that suits Jack Cates.
Approx. transcript time · 00:10:56Read transcript
Walter Hill came off The Warriors, an iconic action movie that will be a future episode, and four Warriors actors appear here: Sonny Landham, James Remar, the actor who played Luther, and a gang member as the parking attendant; the film made almost eighty million dollars as the seventh highest grosser of its year.
Approx. transcript time · 00:11:59Read transcript
Torchy's is the pivot: for the first forty-five minutes it is Nolte's movie, snapping at Annette O'Toole's girlfriend with his captain breathing down his neck, then the film draws up a play for Reggie and its energy changes; nobody else at twenty, not Pryor, Denzel Washington or Will Smith, could have done that scene against forty-five people, and the tax-refund exchange with the 'too fucking stupid to have a job' line is a favorite, cutting to Nolte laughing.
Approx. transcript time · 00:13:50Read transcript
Rewatched this week, the film is much closer to the seventies than the eighties: the static precinct shot with people crossing the frame is more Robert Altman than Michael Bay, a Walter Hill or Sam Peckinpah feel rather than the Joel Silver high-concept era it launched; until this film action movies and comedies were separate, and it led to fifteen years of Last Boy Scout, Lethal Weapon, Beverly Hills Cop and spiritually Midnight Run.
Approx. transcript time · 00:17:21Read transcript
Earlier cop stories were Clint Eastwood loners or Westerns, with The Streets of San Francisco's Karl Malden and Michael Douglas as the old-young model but nobody doing black cop and white cop, perhaps not since In the Heat of the Night; Hill had huge misses and was slated to make Alien; this is a bridge movie and a last vestige of the seventies; cable took off in 1982 and the film ran through cable, VHS, DVD, Blu-ray and streaming like Halloween.
Approx. transcript time · 00:18:59Read transcript
Last thoughts: they do not make ninety-minute, no-backstory movies like this anymore; one host ranks Lethal Weapon 1 above it as more rewatchable; a buddy-cop Mount Rushmore of the first two Lethal Weapons, Last Boy Scout, Running Scared and Bad Boys 1, with Tango and Cash, Nice Guys, Stake Out, The Hard Way, Hollywood Homicide and The Rookie weighed, and no great one in a while.
Approx. transcript time · 01:07:10Read transcript
The 35th anniversary falls on December 8, also the anniversary of one host's first viewing at the Avon Theater; The Watch is promoted, the movie year is graded a B to B plus, and there will be one more Rewatchables before year's end before the show goes weekly in 2018; a film clip closes the episode.
Approx. transcript time · 01:08:47Read transcript

Mentions across The Rewatchables