What's so great about 48 Hrs. (1982)? (action, comedies, director, short)
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It's considered to be the movie that started the cop buddy genre, and it was a hit with audiences at the time. But I do not get what's so good about it. For one thing, I didn't find the characters believable at all.
SPOILERS
After Nick Nolte's character (Cates) is fed up with Eddie Murphy's character (Hammond), he then forces Hammond into an alley into a fistfight. But why? This fight will not solve anything and it just comes out of nowhere, and Cates was not really set up as a violent masochist, who likes to get into deadly fights, so it felt shoehorned in.
Also, Cates allows Hammond to terrorize a bar full of people with a gun threatening to shoot everyone if he doesn't get the answers he wants. What??? Why would a cop do that? Again the movie shows Cates, and possibly Hammond, to be psycho and out of there minds, but there was no prior set up to this. I don't know how Cates ever thinks he can make a case with this behavior.
And then in the third act of the movie, they do not where the villain and are wondering how to find them. One of them says that he could show up at his ex-gf's place, and we might as well go there and wait in case he does by small chance, and then it turns out by coincidence that he does.
It's as if the writers couldn't figure out how to end the movie so they just throw that coincidence in there, to get all the pieces to fall into place.
It also has the classic dumb cliche of a villain holding someone hostage, and tells the cop to drop his gun, an the cop actually does it. The villain is then free to kill the hostage, and does so. It made no sense for the cop drop his gun cause back up was already called and would have been there if he had just waited a few minutes.
Yet the movie was well liked by audiences and critics, so I feel maybe I missed something or I viewed it the wrong way.
The only thing which might've been funny is that Nolte was a white guy dealing with a black guy and he likely didn't have much experience with that culture which makes for some interesting communications
I'm not an American at all, so I have to say I am not totally familiar with the culture and how it was in the early 80s, but I felt that the fact that one was white, and one was black didn't really make a difference for me in terms of how they communicated. I mean Nolte didn't think high of him cause he was a convict, and I think it would have been the same if they were both black or both white, but maybe I'm wrong.
You're watching movies that are part of a certain time period and/or the beginning of a genre and lamenting that you don't get it.
It's like saying "I don't get this model T" bc of course, compared to today's cars it's not a car you'd like.
It's considered to be the movie that started the cop buddy genre, and it was a hit with audiences at the time. But I do not get what's so good about it. For one thing, I didn't find the characters believable at all.
In most comedies - particularly the sort of comedy that stars a stand-up comedian who is not acting so much as doing his stand-up routine - the characters aren't meant to be believable in any real world sense. I mean, how was Donkey in Shrek 'believable'? He wasn't. And it's irrelevant to the form.
You're watching movies that are part of a certain time period and/or the beginning of a genre and lamenting that you don't get it.
It's like saying "I don't get this model T" bc of course, compared to today's cars it's not a car you'd like.
But I think I am fairly judging it for the time and feel that I get the genre. There are other cop buddy movies from the the time that I think are better, such as Lethal Weapon, The Enforcer and Red Heat. Red Heat was done by the same writer/director and I felt he did a much better job on that one.
Plus The Enforcer came out before 48 Hrs., and I felt it did a much better job at the cop buddy comedy genre.
It's considered to be the movie that started the cop buddy genre, and it was a hit with audiences at the time. But I do not get what's so good about it. For one thing, I didn't find the characters believable at all.
SPOILERS
After Nick Nolte's character (Cates) is fed up with Eddie Murphy's character (Hammond), he then forces Hammond into an alley into a fistfight. But why? This fight will not solve anything and it just comes out of nowhere, and Cates was not really set up as a violent masochist, who likes to get into deadly fights, so it felt shoehorned in.
Also, Cates allows Hammond to terrorize a bar full of people with a gun threatening to shoot everyone if he doesn't get the answers he wants. What??? Why would a cop do that? Again the movie shows Cates, and possibly Hammond, to be psycho and out of there minds, but there was no prior set up to this. I don't know how Cates ever thinks he can make a case with this behavior.
And then in the third act of the movie, they do not where the villain and are wondering how to find them. One of them says that he could show up at his ex-gf's place, and we might as well go there and wait in case he does by small chance, and then it turns out by coincidence that he does.
It's as if the writers couldn't figure out how to end the movie so they just throw that coincidence in there, to get all the pieces to fall into place.
It also has the classic dumb cliche of a villain holding someone hostage, and tells the cop to drop his gun, an the cop actually does it. The villain is then free to kill the hostage, and does so. It made no sense for the cop drop his gun cause back up was already called and would have been there if he had just waited a few minutes.
Yet the movie was well liked by audiences and critics, so I feel maybe I missed something or I viewed it the wrong way.
I liked this movie - it had good action and comedy at the same time -- worth a watch.
48 Hours has nothing great about it, never has been considered great either, other than for box office receipts. It's like asking "What's so great about Flashdance?" It is something that kept undemanding audiences amused for a short time, that's all.
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