Beverly Hills Cop - Un piedipiatti a Beverly Hills

Mega-hit action comedy from Paramount Pictures and producing duo Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer. Eddie Murphy became a genuine superstar with the starring role of Detroit Detective Axel Foley, a rule breaker and wisecracker that travels to Beverly Hills to solve a childhood friend's murder. It puts him at odds with a shady art dealer (Steven Berkoff) and the Beverly Hills police department. But Foley soon proves his mettle out West as he obviously has superior detective skills compared to his rule centric equivalents in Beverly Hills.

There are a lot of laughs here, and Murphy has tons of screen charisma. A lot of this will probably seem routine to modern audiences, but at the time this film established the action-comedy as one of the biggest genres of the decade. It also contains one of the signature 80's soundtracks, both the pop songs (several of which charted) and the score by Harold Faltermeyer, which includes the top ten single "Axel F." Directed by Martin Brest.

What helped make this film so great - the very fact that nobody involved KNEW it was great until it got rave audience reaction, is exactly what killed the sequel. Beverly Hills Cop Two rests too much on the laurels of the original, but then that is another story.