Steven Berkoff and Charles Napier are the candidates; Napier is favored despite discussion of whether knowing his name disqualifies him. His Cable Guy appearance is another supporting example. — Kyle Brandt
Stephen Elliott as the chief dialed it up, whether the first time he comes in or the second; pick a time, he is bad.
Earlier, after praise for Paul Reiser in the locker sequence, the only time someone goes over the top of Murphy is credited to Cobb (as transcribed) and James Russo, the two actors going higher than Icarus to see what happens.
Victor Maitland's reaction to Mikey's death is so bad that Stephen Burkoff (as transcribed) should have spent several weeks in character.
The first 19 minutes; obvious stunt doubles; Victor Maitland's reaction to Mikey's death; the homophobia (nominated, then partly defended); Taggart punching Axel; Maitland's useless bodyguards; the Rolling Stone and Michael Jackson name-drop
The first 19 minutes could zip by faster; 1984 was not the peak of masking stunt work, so a guy gets punched and a different man flies through the window, Magnum PI level stunts: the man thrown through the buffet table is not Jonathan Banks, the truck driver has a mullet while the man who climbs out has a bald spot, Victor's tumble down the steps and Eddie through the plate glass are doubles; tumbling action has gone out of style and now reads as farce.
Victor Maitland's reaction to Mikey's death is so bad that Stephen Burkoff (as transcribed) should have spent weeks in character; he has been in a Bond movie and is a good 80s guy; 80s villains were almost always played by sexy men, even Jonathan Banks, the future Mike Ermantrout (as transcribed), has an attractive energy.
The whole movie is pairs of men, five different pairs with no female interruption, like Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas driving and looking at each other; it only jokes about that once at the club, is not homophobic, and is not afraid of what it means to have two men in close proximity.
Homophobia is proposed for what aged worst, but one host finds it less homophobic than memory suggested: you simply see gay people be gay, Damon Wayans plays an effeminate man, and the one not-great moment is Eddie using a made-up disease, Herbie simplex 10 (as transcribed), as a weapon on the maitre d'; the defense is that the characters he invents are bits to get him into the next room, like the loudmouth journalist at the Beverly Palms; Eddie's early-80s homophobia is remembered from the stand-up specials and a little of 48 Hours, not this.
Taggart punching Axel is pretty bad given what has been seen of the LA police, though Taggart then comes out, apologizes and offers to let charges be pressed; Maitland's bodyguards aged badly because all of them were terrible, and the strategy is dissected: five guys come in, four huge ones carry Axel through the building and the fifth just walks in front, so they can throw him through the window as evidence of a public disturbance.
No white person thrown through that window ends up charged with public disturbance and in a police department; Axel never resists arrest because he is a cop from Detroit and a black man who knows what cops do, and he knows Todd will eventually vouch for him; the movie star's entitlement that the plot will give him something to do sits beside the reality of a black person in police presence, and there is a character logic in revealing less to learn how these officers act.
When 48 Hours was a rewatchable the fight between Eddie and Nick Nolte looked like Nolte would kill him, so two years later the formula seems tweaked so Axel is never roughed up beyond a punch in the stomach, the window and being knocked out in the opening.
Getting into the Beverly Palm by name-dropping Rolling Stone and a Michael Jackson profile is offered for aged worst; a follow-up, explicitly not offered as aged worst, is how magazines substitute for mobile phones: Rosewood reading Time about red meat, Victor Maitland flipping through a magazine in Jenny's office, and Jonathan Banks reading National Geographic, which is just how people passed time in 1984.
