Beverly Hills Cop II

Beverly Hills Cop II
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Tony Scott
Produced by	Don Simpson Jerry Bruckheimer
Screenplay by	Larry Ferguson Warren Skaaren
Story by	Eddie Murphy Robert D. Wachs
Based on	Characters: Danilo Bach Daniel Petrie, Jr.
Starring	Eddie Murphy Judge Reinhold Jürgen Prochnow Ronny Cox John Ashton Brigitte Nielsen Dean Stockwell Allen Garfield Gil Hill Gilbert Gottfried and Paul Reiser
Music by	Harold Faltermeyer
Editing by	Chris Lebenzon Billy Weber Michael Tronick
Distributed by	Paramount Pictures
Release date(s)	May 20, 1987
Running time	100 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$20,000,000
Box office	$101,378,548,296[citation needed]

Beverly Hills Cop II is a 1987 action-comedy film starring Eddie Murphy and directed by Tony Scott. It is the first sequel in the Beverly Hills Cop series. Murphy returns as Detroit police detective Axel Foley, who returns to Beverly Hills, California to track down a joint robbery/gun-running ring. He reunites with Beverly Hills detectives Billy Rosewood (Judge Reinhold) and John Taggart (John Ashton) to stop the gang after their friend, Captain Andrew Bogomil (Ronny Cox), is shot and seriously wounded by them.

Although it made less money than the original Beverly Hills Cop and received mixed reviews from critics, the film was still a box office success, making $153,665,036 domestically. Aside from box office success, the film was nominated for an Oscar and for a Golden Globe for Best Original Song, for the song "Shakedown".

Plot

In a scenario set approximately two years after the original film, Captain (formerly Lieutenant) Andrew Bogomil (Ronny Cox), Detective Billy Rosewood (Judge Reinhold), and Sergeant John Taggart (John Ashton) are trying to figure out who is behind the "Alphabet Crimes," a series of mostly high end store robberies distinguished by their monogrammed envelopes with an alphabetical sequence the assailants leave behind. Complicating matters is the new "political" state of the Beverly Hills police, headed by an incompetent and verbally abusive new police chief Harold Lutz (Allen Garfield), who is doing everything he can to stay on Mayor Ted Egan's (Robert Ridgely) good side. Unimpressed when Rosewood calls the FBI to help solve the case, Lutz holds Bogomil responsible as commanding officer and suspends him, despite Bogomil's efforts to convince him that Rosewood was only following a hunch, a traditional aspect of police work. Lutz also punishes Taggart and Rosewood by placing them on traffic duty.

On the way home, Bogomil is shot by Karla Fry (Brigitte Nielsen), the chief hench-woman of Maxwell Dent (Jürgen Prochnow). Finding out about the shooting by a news report, Axel Foley (Murphy) immediately flies out to Beverly Hills (covering his absence from his actual job in Detroit by telling his commanding officer Inspector Todd (Gil Hill) he is going "deep deep deep DEEP undercover" on the credit card fraud case he had been assigned to) to help find out who shot Bogomil, to repay the favor he owes Bogomil for saving his job two years ago. Taggart and Rosewood agree to assist Foley because of Lutz's apparent attempts to find an excuse to get them fired.

Posing as an undercover FBI agent to get past Lutz (by getting his would-be partner Jeffrey Friedman in Detroit to pose as Todd, and intercept Lutz's phone call to Todd's office, to convince Lutz that Foley is part of a multi-jurisdictional task force), Foley soon starts making the connection between the robberies and Dent. Foley has Bogomil's daughter Jan use her connections as an insurance agent to find out about Dent's financial dealings: Dent is robbing his own businesses on purpose in order to finance firearms deals and is discreetly using his henchman Charles Cain (Dean Stockwell) as the front man for his operations. Bogomil was shot because his investigation was on the correct track into the case.

Having foiled a robbery attempt at a bank depot, Foley is able to trick Dent's accountant (Gilbert Gottfried) into using his computer and discovers that Dent and Karla are planning to leave the country. Foley also learns from Jan that all of Dent's businesses have had their insurance coverage canceled and are about to go bankrupt except his race track, which he is convinced is the next target. On the way to the race track, Foley solves the latest riddle sent to the police, and is convinced that this riddle was made easily solvable in order to implicate Cain as the Alphabet Bandit, although Foley, after meeting him earlier, knows Cain is a patsy designed to throw the authorities off of Dent's trail.

The three arrive too late to stop the robbery and find Cain's body (he was shot by Karla) among those killed. While Lutz announces publicly that the Alphabet Crimes have been solved, Foley notices some red mud at the stables, which leads him, Taggart and Rosewood to Dent's oil field, where Dent is making his final arms deal. The three get into a shootout with everyone involved in the deal. Dent confronts Foley in the warehouse, but Foley gets distracted by one of Dent's henchmen on the roof above him and Dent gets away. Dent then crashes through the wall in his car and Foley shoots Dent through the windshield, sending his car down a hill and erupting in flames, after running Foley over. Karla appears and is about to kill Foley, but is shot dead by Taggart.

Just as the last thugs are about to flee, the police arrive upon the scene, along with Lutz and Mayor Egan. Lutz tries to fire Rosewood and Taggart for their insubordination, and also tries to arrest Foley. However, both Taggart and Rosewood stand up to Lutz this time and prove that Dent was the real Alphabet Bandit. They are also able to convince Mayor Egan of Lutz's incompetence, and the Mayor personally fires Lutz because he is tired of his abusive attitude towards his own men.

At the end of the film, Bogomil is chosen by Mayor Egan to replace Lutz as the new Chief of Police, and Foley returns to Detroit, but not before he gets chewed out by Inspector Todd over the phone, right after Egan called Todd to congratulate him on allowing Foley to assist them on this case.

Principal cast

• Eddie Murphy as Detective Axel Foley a street smart Detroit cop. He goes to Beverly Hills to investigate the attempted murder of his friend Captain Andrew Bogomil.

• Judge Reinhold as Detective Billy Rosewood, a Beverly Hills detective who (along with Sergeant John Taggart) help Axel investigate the attempted murder of their supervisor, Capt. Andrew Bogomil.

• John Ashton as Detective Sergeant John Taggart, Billy's partner and a friend of Axel who (along with Billy) help Axel investigate the attempted murder of their supervisor, Capt. Andrew Bogomil.

• Jürgen Prochnow as Maxwell Dent, an arms dealer, businessman, & the antagonist of the story.

• Ronny Cox as Captain Andrew Bogomil, captain of the police force in Beverly Hills. He is almost killed by Karla Fry in an attempted murder and the film deals with the subsequent work of Axel, Rosewood and Taggart into investigating both the Alphabet crimes and who shot Captain Bogomil.

• Brigitte Nielsen as Karla Fry, Dent's henchwoman.

• Allen Garfield as Police Chief Harold Lutz, the new chief of police in Beverly Hills. He is seen insulting or firing his men for no apparent reason, often treating them badly and ignoring on what they have to say. This reason is what led Taggart and Rosewood to work with Axel in secret since he is looking for an excuse to get them fired.

Supporting cast

• Dean Stockwell as Charles "Chip" Cain
• Paul Reiser as Detective Jeffrey Friedman
• Gilbert Hill as Inspector Douglas Todd
• Tom Bower as Russell Fielding, gunsmith of the Beverly Hills Gun Club
• Paul Guilfoyle as Nikos "Nik" Thomopolis
• Robert Ridgely as Mayor Ted Egan
• Alice Adair as Jan Bogomil
• Tommy 'Tiny' Lister as Orvis
• Chris Rock as Playboy Mansion Valet
• Hugh Hefner as himself
• Ola Ray as One of the Playmates
• Gilbert Gottfried as Sidney Bernstein
• Frank J. Pesce as Carlotta
• Robert Pastorelli as Vinnie
• Glenn Withrow as Willie
• Valerie Wildman as Gun Club Receptionist

Production

Paramount Pictures had planned a television series based on the first film. Eddie Murphy refused the series but was willing to do a sequel. Producers Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer hired Tony Scott to direct due to his success with the 1986 blockbuster film Top Gun. The film was originally to be set and filmed in London and Paris, however, the script was re-written after Eddie Murphy expressed a reluctance to film outside the United States.

Soundtrack

The song "Hold On" as sung by Keta Bill plays during the scene wherein Axel, Rosewood, and Taggart confront Dent at the Playboy Mansion. However, the film's soundtrack CD released by MCA Records includes only a different song entitled "Hold On," sung by Corey Hart. This song has different music and slightly altered lyrics. The movie introduced George Michael's controversial song "I Want Your Sex". It also includes "Cross My Broken Heart" by The Jets and "Shakedown" by Bob Seger which became a #1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100, as well as "Better Way" performed by James Ingram. As with the first movie, none of Harold Faltermeyer's soundtrack score has ever been released. However, Harold Faltermeyer's 1988 album, Harold F, includes a song called "Bad Guys" which is used as part of the film's score—an instrumental section of the song plays during the opening jewelry store robbery scene, and also during several other scenes throughout the movie.

The soundtrack debuted #8 on the Billboard charts and spent 26 weeks on the charts, a far cry compared to the 49 weeks the soundtrack for the first Beverly Hills Cop. Despite this, one song from the album, "Shakedown" was nominated for on Oscar and the Golden Globe for Best Original Song. However, another song from the album "I Want Your Sex" was nominated for the Razzie Award for Worst Song.

Reception

Critical reception

The film received a mixed reception. It currently holds 46% rating at Rotten Tomatoes with an average review of 4.8 out of 10. Film critic Ryan Cracknell noted that "Murphy still has energy and charisma to spare and raises the performances of the more subdued that surround him," while Roger Ebert (then of review duo Siskel & Ebert) gave the film only one star out of four, remarking "What is comedy? That's a pretty basic question, I know, but Beverly Hills Cop II never thought to ask it."

Box office

Beverly Hills Cop II was one of the most anticipated films of 1987 and became a box office success upon release, despite not making as much as the first Beverly Hills Cop. The film debuted #1, earning $33 million on its opening weekend, a sales mark that would result in its being the highest opening weekend debut of the year. Beverly Hills Cop II made approximately $153,665,036, becoming the third biggest hit domestically at the box office that year, after Fatal Attraction and Three Men and a Baby and the second highest grossing film worldwide that year, behind Fatal Attraction.

Awards and nominations

Nominations

• Academy Awards
  • Best Original Song for the song "Shakedown"

• Golden Globe Awards
  • Best Original Song for the song "Shakedown"

Awards

• ASCAP Film and Television Music Awards
  • Most Performed Song From Motion Pictures for the song "Shakedown"

• Razzie Awards
  • Worst Original Song for George Michael for the song "I Want Your Sex"

• Kids' Choice Awards
  • Favorite Movie
  • Favorite Movie Actor for Eddie Murphy

External links

• Beverly Hills Cop II at the Internet Movie Database
• Beverly Hills Cop II at AllRovi
• Beverly Hills Cop II at Box Office Mojo