Beverly Hills Cop and American Decline

Kingsley Amis supposedly said that Beverly Hills Cop was a “flawless masterpiece.” By all expectations, it had no right to be. A cliched plot—heroes’ best friend is murdered; hero avenges best friend by murdering murderer—didn’t sound very promising. Neither did another buddy cop movie, much less another buddy cop movie starring Eddie Murphy. (The popular 48 Hrs., in which Murphy, playing a good-natured con, starred opposite Nick Nolte, as a gruff cop, premiered just 2 years before.) But Beverly Hills Cop worked—and became a blockbuster in the process.

The reason it did is obvious: Eddie Murphy. The plot, which is functional enough, doesn’t matter. It is instead a vehicle for Eddie’s sense of humor and his character performances. Besides Axel Foley, a Detroit police detective, these range from Inspector Raff of the United States Customs Service (“Hurry up! Quicker!”) to the out-of-place street hustler Ramon (“You know, I think that would be best”). While Murphy’s comedy is hilarious, he remains completely believable as a detective, one capable of solving a murder and getting in (and winning) a violent shootout with a heavily armed drug gang. Add in a great supporting cast, an incredible soundtrack, and one of the best opening scenes of all time, and you have a comedy, and action, classic.

This being America, Beverly Hills Cop’s financial success made sequels inevitable, and two forgettable movies followed in 1987 and 1994. But I was still excited to watch Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F, which was released on Netflix over the 4^th of July weekend. Unfortunately, it was not only forgettable, but actively bad—and an illustration of American decline.

The backdrop to Beverly Hills Cop is the contrast between Detroit—poor, urban, black—and Beverly Hills, which is rich, suburban, and white. Almost all of Foley’s jokes riff on these differences. There’s also a serious element to them. California, through Foley’s eyes, is otherworldly. While this can be the subject of mockery—Serge’s modern art piece, or Rosewood and Taggert’s innocence of “good, old-fashioned American street violence”—it is more often one of WONDER, at palm-tree lined boulevards, blonde and jacked policemen from central casting (who probably were from central casting), and beautiful cars and homes. California’s mystique is a central part of the movie. The state’s sunniness is reflected in Foley’s joy as he bounds through Beverly Hills and interacts with its people.

Axle F has none of this—and it can’t. California no longer has a mystique, and is otherworldly in all the wrong ways. L.A. is shown to have islands of opulence, but these are amidst a crowded and dirty cityscape that doesn’t look much different than Detroit. Many of the people with whom Foley interacts are fat and ugly. And instead of being arrested by 2 chads in a Crown Vic, Foley is detained by 2 Latinas in a Smart Car.

More important, the class and racial differences that animated the comedy of the first movie—the binary between rich and poor, black and white—are impossible in a more unequal and pluralistic America. By the same token, the contrast between Beverly Hills and Detroit is less obvious where regional identifies aren’t important and deracination is the norm. The old WASP police chief from the first movie—complete with a Midatlantic accent!—who Foley (and Taggert and Rosewood) lampoon for his stiffness, can’t act as a foil in a country where there is no monolithic WASP elite. Instead, Axel F is left with Kevin Bacon, who plays a generic (and corrupt) white police officer, who could be a generic (and corrupt) white police officer in any city in the country.

In any event, Axel F is bad. It did have one redeeming quality, however—it inspired me to rewatch Beverly Hills Cop. You should too. I’ll leave you with this phenomenal scene: