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The Rewatchables · December 7, 2017

48 Hrs.

host Bill Simmons host Chris Ryan

What aged best: Young Eddie Murphy's performance as Reggie Hammond
Casting what-if: Clint Eastwood and Richard Pryor nearly made it in the late seventies
What aged worst: The rampant racism

All 14 categories

Who won the movie Eddie Murphy
Roger Ebert

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

Eddie Murphy Reggie Hammond

Annette O'Toole Elaine Marshall

Frank McRae Captain Haden

James Remar Albert Ganz

David Patrick Kelly Luther Kelly

Sonny Landham Billy Bear

Brion James Inspector Ben Kehoe

Kerry Sherman Rosalie

Jonathan Banks Inspector Algren

James Keane Inspector Van Zant

Tara King Frizzy

Greta Blackburn Lisa

Margot Rose Casey

Denise Crosby Sally

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.

21:27

Most Rewatchable 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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28:30

What’s Aged the Best?

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

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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44:37

The Dion Waiters Award for Best Heat Check Performance

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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58:37

Is This Movie Better With…?

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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