Lost in Translation 467 – Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F (2024)

As mentioned many times here at Lost in Translation, the Eighties were an unusual decade. In entertainment, anything could become a hit. Indeed, the Eighties were the first decade in the history of film where the popular films were mainly original works instead of adaptations. The music video became an artform, and several movies became hits thanks the synergy between them and videos

One of the benefactors of the use of the music video to hype a movie was 1984’s Beverly Hills Cop, starring Eddie Murphy. While Murphy was a draw, thanks to his time on Saturday Night Live and the 1983 HBO special, Delerious featuring Murphy’s stand-up routine. Murphy, once away from SNL‘s broadcast requirements, worked blue, a raw form of comedy.

Beverly Hills Cop was a buddy cop movie, with Murphy playing Axel Foley, a streetwise detective from Detroit. The buddies – John Ashton as Sergeant John Taggart and Judge Reinhold as Detective Billy Rosewood – The movie also starred Lisa Eilbacher as Jenny Summers, Ronny Cox as Lieutenant Andrew Bogomil, Stephen Elliot as Chief Hubbard, Paul Reiser as Jeffrey Friedman, Jonathan Banks as Zach, Steven Berkohh as Victor Maitland, and Bronson Pinchot as Serge.

The film opens with Foley on the job, a sting operation to break a cigareette smuggling ring that is not quite on the books. If it had on the books, the two uniformed officers weould have known better than to interfere. The interference causes the criminals to run, leading to a chase that leaves a swath of destruction in Detroit. That earns Foley a chewing out by his superior.

That night, he arrives home to his apartment to find that it has been broken into. Inside, he finds his old friend Mikey Tandino (James Russo). Mikey has some German bearer bonds to show Foley. After a trip to a bar, the two return to the apartment. Foley is knocked unconscious and Mikey is killed.

When Foley is denied being assigned to the murder case, he takes eesome vacation time and travels across the country to LA. He finds Jenny Summers working at an art gallery, where she had helped Mikey get a job as a security guard. Jenny tells Foley about the ties Mikey had with the gallery owner, Victor Maitland. Foley gets into Maitland’s office to confront him, but is defenestrated from the building and picked up by the Beverly Hills Police Department for trespassing.

Taggart and Rosewood are assigned to keep an eye on Foley. Foley manages to disable their car to get around without being followed, but makes it up to them by treating them to drinks at a local strip club. While there, both Taggart and Foley notice some robbers getting ready to hit the joint. The three detectives foil the robbery, building mutual respect among them.

As a team, the three detectives work out what Maitland’s plan is, how the German bearer bonds work in, and why Foley’s friend was murdered in Detroit. Maitland is aware and takes Jenny hostage. The movie climaxes with a shootout at Maitland’s Beverly Hills mansion.

Beverly Hills Cop‘s success, once audiences were aware of it thanks to the music videos, came from Eddie Murphy and the chemistry he had with the cast. While the movie was light action, there were dramatic moments, giving contrast to the humour. The movie spawned sequels, Beverly Hills Cop II in 1987 and Beverly Hills Cop III in 1994. Cop III wasn’t as well received as the first two films in the series, having been spearheaded by the studio and lacking several key actors.

Forty years after the release of Beverly Hills Cop and thirty after Beverly Hills Cop III, Netflix in conjunction with Eddie Murphy Productions and Don Simpson/Jerry Bruckheimer Films, released to streaming Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F. The 1994 film brings back Murphy as Axel Foley, along with Judge Reinhold, John Ashton, Paul Reiser, and Bronson Pinchot. New to the cast are Kevin Bacon, Taylour Paige, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

Axel F begins in Detroit as Foley drives around Detroit, greeting people on the street. Foley is still a detective on the force, and his destination is Little Caesars Arena, home of the Detroit Red Wings, where me meets fellow detective Mike Woody (Kyle S. More) to watch the hockey match. However, Foly has an ulterior motive. He spots several thieves in security guard uniforms. He points the thieves out to Woody, encouraging the younger detective to take the initiative to arrest the crooks.

Things never go smooth and Foley needs to chase the thieves who are escaping on ATVs. The only vehicle available to Foley is a snow plow. The ensuing chase through Detroit results in massive collateral damage and the thieves in custody. Foley’s boss recommends taking time off, a vacation, to let the political heat die down.

When Foley returns home, he gets a call from Rosewood, now a private investigator. Rosewood tells Foley that his estranged daughter, Jane Saunders (Paige), is in danger. Jane and Rosewood have been working on a case to clear a man accused of killing an undercover cop. Foley takes up his boss’ offer and heads out to Beverly Hills.

Before, during, and after the flight, all attempts by Foley to reach Rosewood just get routed to voice mail. Foley stops at Rosewood’s office to snoop, running into several men turning the office over in a search. He grabs several pages from Billy’s agenda before being seen and fleeing. His getaway is hampered by a meter maid (Bria L. Murphy) writing a ticket on his rental truck, so Foley takes her vehicle. She’s not letting Foley go, so she’s with him during the chase through Beverly Hills and winds up arresting him.

At BHPD headquarters, Foley is interrogated by Detective Bobby Abbott (Gordon-Levitt), though the Detroit cop holds out to talk to Taggert. Taggert, now Chief of Police, greets Foley and introduces him to Captain Cade Grant (Bacon). However, regs are regs and Foley still needsto be bailed out. His daughter arrives with the bail money.

Foley and Jane set aside some of their differences long enough to start investigating, starting with the wreck of the undercover cop’s car. However, the reunion is short-lived as they get ambushed on Wiltshire Boulevard. Things look grim until Abbott arrives, gunning down the ambushers. He joins Foley and Jane in checking out the wrecked car and discover that the SD card holding the dashcam footage is gone.

The agenda pages Foley grabbed from Rosewood’s office has an address that turns out to be a mansion where money is being laudered for a cartel. Foley calls Serge to arrange a viewing of a neighbouring house. Using Jane and Abbott as a distraction for the realtor, Foley sneaks into the mansion and uncovers who is behind the operation and the murder of the undercover cop.

After further investigation, Rosewood is found, but Jane is taken hostage. With help from Rosewood and Abbott, Foley heads to where Jane is being held. Some creative driving gets Taggart in on the hunt, leading to a climactic gunfight at the mansion. Foley and Jane reconcile as do Jane and Abbott. The movie ends with Taggart and Rosewood once again keeping an eye on Foley to make sure he doesn’t get into more trouble and doing a poor job of it.

Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F feels like the gang is back together. It uses similar beats as the original and builds on the chemistry between the characters. Even memorable parts of the orignal film’s soundtrack return, like Glenn Frey’s “The Heat is On“, the Pointer Sister’s “Neutron Dance“, and, of course, Harold Faltermeyer’s “Axel F“. For the portion of the audience that remember the original movie, it’s Old Home Week. However, new audiences can still enjoy the film as new music also appears, along with the new characters.

That’s not to say that the characters have been static. Foley had a family that he had to step away from. Rosewood left the BHPD. Life wasn’t put on pause over the thirty years since the last entry. Axel Foley is still Axel Foley, but one who has been on the job for a while and has regrets. He has to deal with changes both at home in his life and in Beverly Hills.

Helping keeping the feel of a Beverly Hills Cop movie is the writing. It’s not enough to have as much of the original cast return if the script doesn’t ackowledge the relationships between them. Time has passed and things have changed, but Foley, Rosewood, and Taggart can still work past their differences. The addition of Jane and Abbott brings new blood while still not pushing aside the original cast. The audience is drawn in by the originals, so they need to be central.

Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F is what the title suggests, a Beverly Hills Cop movie, forty years after the original. It delivers on expectations and doesn’t try to go beyond. Axel F is as deep as the original, and is still a light action comedy with dramatic moments. It delivers on its promise, that being a sequel to the original.

That said, there’s room for a spin-off starring Jane, Abbott, and Rosewood as the main characters. A lawyer in Beverly Hills with a cop boyfriend and an ex-cop PI mentor can be done, and if the spin-off has the same humour and chemistry that Axel F had, it should draw an audience.