Nowadays, Eddie Murphy is most familiar to people as the voice of Donkey in the SHREK films and some of his more family-oriented offerings like THE NUTTY PROFESSOR, but back in the early 1980s, on the strength of his tenure on the legendary US comedy show SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE, alongside the likes of Dan Aykroyd, the late John Belushi, Chevy Chase and Bill Murray, he was a one-man entertainment benemoth who then went stratospheric when he made the transition from TV to film comedy with a multi-picture deal with Paramount.
The first of his films was 48 HRS (1982), which Nick Nolte outlined in his authorised biography was in fact one of the worst scripts he’d ever read in its’ original draft form when it was presented by director Walter Hill. The hook came from a contact Nolte knew in the force who used to spring somebody out of jail for several hours to help solve a case.
In 48 HRS, Albert Ganz (James Remar) is sprung from a roadside inmate dig by Billy Bear (Sonny Landham). The pair are out to get some money that fellow gang member Reggie Hammond (Eddie Murphy) acquired and hid from them, with help from another gang member Luther (David Patrick Kelly) who can get the money from a car park, but kidnap Luther’s girlfriend to ensure he gets the cash.
Detective Jack Cates (Nolte) first encounters Ganz and Billy when he joins a couple of other cops who are investigating stolen credit cards used at a hotel in San Francisco. In the confusion, one of the cops gets shot and Cates has to use the help of Hammond by springing him from jail for 48 hours (hence the title)
Cates and Hammond are not suited to one another and make the other one know how they feel about each other, but before long, there is a deeper concern and the bond between them increases as the case progresses….
48 HRS ushered in the buddy cop thriller movie that came to the fore in the late 1980s with the likes of LETHAL WEAPON and TANGO & CASH and was one of the first films that gave Joel Silver a major producing credits which he followed up with the likes of PREDATOR, DIE HARD and THE MATRIX films amongst others.
Murphy went on to even greater success in 1984 with BEVERLY HILLS COP and Hill went on to direct the likes of RED HEAT and LAST MAN STANDING with Bruce Willis. Cinemtographer Ric Waite also lensed COBRA with Sylvester Stallone/
A sequel, ANOTHER 48 HRS, also starring Nolte and Murphy and directed by Hill, followed in 1990