Snipes's performance reads as Diet Coke Snipes until the end; his one Black cop among white cops is called a purposeful inversion of Walken's white boss with a Black gang.
The account given: Russo, a Ferrara regular since China Girl, was written Jimmy Jump and Caruso the cop to exploit their rivalry from that film, but Russo turned it down rather than let Caruso spit in his face.
Russo is said to have later admitted on Django that turning down the part was idiotic; Fishburne licks the spit and wins that scene.
Casting what-ifs is said to be done already, but more stories are being saved.
Per the account given, four years earlier Ferrara planned the film with James Remar as Frank White after The Cotton Club; later at Live it was to be Harvey Keitel, who backed out to do Bad Lieutenant instead, and then the part went to Walken.
It has to be Walken, with a distancing quality Keitel lacks; it is called the best Walken part of all time, and the whole-movie contest is a three-way dogfight among The Deer Hunter, King of New York and The Funeral.
Whether Cop 2 is better: it is a better story and a flat-out good, more fun movie with good music, the Taggart and Rosewood thing and Brigitte Nilsson (as transcribed), with Eddie still great; the fondness for Cop 1 comes from everything it meant for the Eddie arc.
Was Axel Foley gay gets a yes, but the answer first returns to the period reviews, which were also upset about how the movie made white people look.
Pauline Kale (as transcribed) did not believe in Eddie Murphy's stardom and found it offensive because he used it as a joke on how dumb white people could be made to look by a smart black person, a sort of pro-minstrel argument against an anti-minstrel work; LA Times letters in 1985 characterized Murphy's swagger with a racial slur and worried that black confidence would replace white comedians.
One host as a kid felt the opposite, that it was the greatest thing that ever happened; Kale was about 65, not a racist, but had an interesting take on how black audiences responded to The French Connection, and old guard critics felt that way, so the rewatch was done aware that people were nervous Eddie was someone white people should fear.
To one host it is a movie about a gay black man in the Detroit police whose former best friend, probably lover or hookup buddy, gets killed, sending him on a mission; not having sex with a woman does not make you gay, but a near two-hour movie whose protagonist on the verge of major stardom never gets a moment with the girl is striking, even allowing that Eddie arrived two weeks before filming and nothing was rewritten.
Evidence: Jenny looks completely enamored, goes to the big three-room suite and immediately lies on the bed batting her eyelashes, and the only thing on Axel's mind is ordering room service for Taggart and Rosewood.
The Mikey scenes are weird to watch: at the bar they look like they are about to make out, they exchange 'I love you', and when Axel gets home after the chewing-out by Inspector Todd to find Mikey broken in with the fridge open he is elated; the counter is that a friend out of prison eating a mayo sandwich in your kitchen would get 'get out of my house, you felon'.
Gay characters are sprinkled throughout; it is an unintended consequence of a movie made with a ton of cocaine by the seat of its pants; at the strip joint he only tells Rosewood to give the dancer a dollar and does not partake, and his pretending is for plot rather than character; the movie is all pairs of men with emotional energy who could be on the verge of kissing, so subtext becomes text; 'is Axel gay' is a long-running Reddit conspiracy theory; James Russo brings a wild method energy to a two-minute part, a reckless guy out of prison who almost cries seeing his friend, which feels very real.
Eddie is drawn into Russo rather than watching a method performance, they are on the same page; the original ending reportedly had Eddie back in his Detroit apartment opening the closet to find Mikey's shirt and sniffing it, prompting the joke that Martin Brest was robbed of an Oscar; the movie probably intended none of it.
Intent does not matter because those things are in the movie we got; one host noticed it independently and wrote about it in a 2010 mailbag because the Jenny Summers scene jumped out, and may have inspired the theory; no other 80s action or genre movie lacks some nod to the hero's romantic life.
Even in 48 Hours Nick Nolte's girlfriend calls to complain and Eddie gets laid by Olivia Brown, his primary obsession in that film; Eilbacher is a beautiful blonde, not a character actress like Joan Cusack, whose function in any other movie of the period, see Stripes, is to give a straight hero somewhere to put his sexuality; perhaps it was a black-white thing, since the sex scene was cut from The Golden Child and they were not ready for Eddie to do that in a mainstream movie.
The conspiracy theory is compared to early Will Smith, who had Vivica A. Fox to get back to but few romantic leads for someone in his position, and did not help himself by skipping the kiss in Six Degrees of Separation, after which he always has a girlfriend, wife or dead spouse; the wish is that movies would acknowledge gay people exist and have sex lives instead of flicking at it.
Damon Wayans giving him the fruit plate with the banana for the tailpipe is text, not subtext, and Eddie turns around on his way out to say thank you, perfectly comfortable with the man; the movie's own setup is the you-killed-my-lover revenge premise of other action movies, taken as a vacation; one host watched it for 26 years without noticing until the other wrote about it.
The passion for Jenny Summers is the giveaway, how could a man not kiss her; the wish for one line where she hits on him and he insinuates he does not do that anymore is answered with 'that makes it worse'; it makes her character more interesting and hornier, and Eddie's complicated history with homophobia in his comedy makes the whole thing more frictive.
A tangent on Eddie's homophobia turns into a bit about one host's bullies now being gay married with three kids: bully someone and your sexuality will come for you.
During the scene discussion, 'before he dies, they're doing it' was raised about Axel and Mikey and saved for later.
During what aged best, Jenny is said to be a love interest for neither man, though she really tried with Eddie, and the subject is parked until later.
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.
Jonathan Banks was a first-ballot that guy from Wiseguy and Beverly Hills Cop for 20 plus years until Breaking Bad made him Emmy winner Jonathan Banks; Ronnie Cox was a that guy who ripped off Vision Quest, Cop and Cop 2, RoboCop, Total Recall and San Elsewhere (as transcribed) and eventually became Ronnie Cox.
James Russo is one host's winner, though another cannot name anything else he has been in; a different pick is Michael Champion, one of Maitland's men alongside Banks, who was in Total Recall, Hill Street Blues and V as the slimy sidekick to the heavy; Russo is acting as if he is in a Michael Cimino movie and taking it out on Beverly Hills Cop; Stephen Elliott, the chief, is a TV actor to end all TV actors.
Mickey Rourke signed a $400,000 holding deal and left; Sylvester Stallone rewrote it as a straight action film with Axel Cobretti and quit two weeks before filming; Martin Scorsese was offered the director's chair and dismissed the script; Eddie Murphy was hired two weeks before shooting
Mickey Rourke signed a $400,000 holding contract and then left the project; a New York Times quote has Don Simpson tearing a picture of Rourke out of a magazine, holding it up and saying 'isn't he great', which the hosts attribute to all the cocaine, although one says you did not need cocaine to want Rourke in 1984.
This is the movie missing from Rourke's run before he started messing up his face: Heaven's Gate, Body Heat, Diner, Rumblefish, Pope of Greenwich Village, then the gap where Beverly Hills Cop could sit, followed by Eureka, Year of the Dragon and Nine and a Half Weeks; the holding deal's schedules did not work out.
Stallone was more extreme: he made it a straight action film with the lead renamed Axel Cobretti, Michael Tandino as his brother and Jenny as his love interest, an opening meant to be like Saving Private Ryan on the beaches of Normandy, ideas deemed too expensive, and a climax of him driving a Lamborghini down the train tracks at a freight train driven by the villain; an urban legend has him quitting two weeks before filming over orange juice in his trailer.
Scorsese was offered the director's chair while trying to get Last Temptation of Christ made, was bewildered by the script and dismissed it.
Earlier context: Eddie was hired two weeks before filming on a script kicking around since the 70s, a cop-comes-to-another-town movie set up for various stars and directors, and he transformed it with improv; it does not work with Sylvester Stallone, who would have made it a dramatic action movie, and if Stallone is in that cigarette truck the movie weighs 150 pounds more; with anyone else it would be actively bad because we know who killed his friend in the first 30 minutes.
The parts of Bogomil, Rosewood and Taggart were probably not rewritten after the casting changes, so the other actors are playing a script written for Mickey Rourke or Stallone with Eddie as the star; it was hard for them to handle his ad libs because takes got ruined by laughter.
Nothing in the first 20 minutes is exceedingly rewatchable to one host, who flips channels waiting for Axel to reach Beverly Hills; another disagrees, saying the chase is really good, and would watch an hour and a half of the cigarette deal as a Jim Jarmusch movie, and loves the Mean Streets moment that takes it out of 80s blockbuster territory; without the title you would not know what to make of Axel.
Axel arriving in Beverly Hills and checking into the hotel, claiming to be a Rolling Stone reporter in town to interview Michael Jackson, might be the funniest thing he has ever done; he cries racism without saying racism, playing an entitled white person and an affronted black person at the same time, which gets the manager to give him the room at half price; he overhears the no-reservations phone call so he has an opening line, and the wordless take at $240 a night is an all-timer.
From there it goes straight to Jenny Summers and the $130,000 piece with Serge, an almost impeccable nine minutes of comedy; an 80s trope of the pop song over the montage being turned down for a scene and brought back is noted as Stir It Up returns when he passes the two Michael Jacksons; the Serge part is compared to Shawn Michaels making any wrestler better, and Bronson Pinchot got a whole career and a sitcom out of two scenes after Risky Business.
Other nominations: the banana in the tailpipe, ordering the shrimp sandwich room service in the suite where the Rosewood and Taggart interplay starts, and the strip joint scene leading into the Super Cops monologue where everybody is cracking up; the 'Billy, you don't have to be embarrassed' bit and the Phil, Vanity Six exchange are recited.
The first team's 'not gonna fall for the banana in the tailpipe' outside Maitland's house became an iconic Little League taunt with no idea of the context, and Tiger Woods talking like the tailpipe guy in 1997 gave it five more years; the ending is enjoyed for the inept guards hailing bullets without hitting anyone in the age of the poorly deployed Uzi.
Axel getting chewed out by Cobb (as transcribed) over the truckload of cigarettes from the Dearborn hijack, with Paul Reiser's 'this is not my locker', is nominated; Cobb and James Russo are called the only two people who go over the top of Murphy, going higher than Icarus.
Asked for 30 seconds on James Russo and granted 45, the Michael Tandino thing is framed as a weird love story at the start of the movie that sets everything up. — Chris Ryan
The setup is a 24-hour working-class man using his vacation to solve a murder instead of going to Hawaii; an aside confirms Beverly Hills is its own city with its own police department, expensive, good schools, safe; the pool, bar and apartment sequence with Tandino is one host's rewatchable pick, and 'before he dies, they're doing it' is raised and saved for later.
Why the movie happened is saved for half-assed research; Axel at the customs facility asking about the Porsche and 'then you're my fucking problem' is added; the final pick is checking into the hotel all the way to Serge.
During the super cop scene John Ashton is visibly fighting laughter with his head down like a Carol Burnett show sketch, Ronnie Cox can be seen fighting it too, and Judge Reinhold reportedly pinched the inside of his thigh to keep from laughing at Eddie's ad libs; one host says it changes how he will watch the movie forever.
