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Beverly Hills Cop II

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Beverly Hills Cop II
Theatrical release poster
Directed byTony Scott
Written byCharacters:
Danilo Bach
Daniel Petrie, Jr.
Story:
Eddie Murphy
Robert D. Wachs
Screenplay:
Larry Ferguson
Warren Skaaren
Uncredited:
David Giler
Dennis Klein
Produced byDon Simpson
Jerry Bruckheimer
StarringEddie Murphy
Judge Reinhold
Jürgen Prochnow
Ronny Cox
John Ashton
Brigitte Nielsen
Allen Garfield
Dean Stockwell
Gil Hill
Gilbert Gottfried
and Paul Reiser
Edited byChris Lebenzon
Billy Weber
Michael Tronick
Music byHarold Faltermeyer
Distributed byParamount Pictures
Release date
May 20, 1987
Running time
100 minutes
CountryTemplate:FilmUS
LanguageEnglish
Budget$20,000,000[1]
Box office$299,965,036

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 did not make more money than the first Beverly Hills Cop and receiving mixed reviews from critics, it was still a box office success, making $153,665,036 domestically.

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 named 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 over 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 he was 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 convincing his would-be partner Jeffrey Friedman in Detroit to pose as Todd to intercept Lutz's phone call to Todd's office and convince Lutz that Foley is part of a multi-jurisdictional task force), Foley soon starts making the connection between the robberies and Dent, and 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 he was on the right track with his investigation 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, and he learns from Jan that all of Dent's businesses have gone bankrupt except his race track, which he is convinced is the next target. On the way 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 of them then engage in a shootout with everyone involved in the deal. Dent confronts Foley in the warehouse, but Foley gets distracted and Dent walks into the shadows. 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. 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 back to Detroit, but not before he gets chewed out by Inspector Todd over the phone, right after Egan called him to congratulate him on allowing Foley to assist them on this case.

Cast

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.[3] Producers Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer hired Tony Scott to direct because he did a good job on 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.'

In a behind-the-scenes featurette, many of the cast and crew expressed that the second film was more comedic and had more action than the first one. They also said that the relationship between Sgt. Taggart and Det. Billy Roosewood was more friendly than the one in the first film to Axel Foley and that this time they where working together instead of tailing each other like they did in the first film. They also noted that the characters acted more detectively than they did on the first film.

The AutoMag handgun is stated as being the weapon of choice by the Alphabet Bandits. Empty AutoMag casings are even shown as key pieces of evidence from the first heist. However, no .44 AutoMag was used by anyone in the film. Most of the bandits use Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine guns, which are 9 millimeters. At various points, Karla Fry used a 9 millimeter and/or a .357 Magnum.

When Axel Foley first meets Chief Lutz, he tells him he is Johnny Wishbone from the Isle of St. Croix. Upon their next meeting, Lutz says that he checked with Immigration and they had never heard of Johnny Wishbone. St. Croix is an island in the US Virgin Islands and therefore Immigration would have no record of anyone from there coming to the Continental U.S. When Axel Foley is searching the map coordinates the address of city deposit is 9752 Gregory way but when Taggart is calling for back-up he clearly says the address as 341 Gregory. In another scene after the City Deposit heist, as Murphy jumps up into the concrete truck, he drops his gun which can be seen briefly and in a change of camera view of the following scene you can see the gun in the street. And after Murphy reaches the armored truck to look through it he has his gun.

Chief Todd's office window has his name inscribed as "G. TODD", however, in Beverly Hills Cop III, dialogue reveals that Todd's first name is Douglas. The "G" may stand for the first name of Gil Hill, a former detective for the Detroit Police Department and past President of the Detroit City Council.

  • Amos 'n' Andy - When Bogomil call Axel Foley, Axel asnwers as George "Kingfish" Stevens. "Kingfish" is a character from this situation comedy.
  • Kibbles 'n Bits - When Axel Foley first meets Chief Lutz and his partner Biddle, he tells them that they were like this brand name of dog food.
  • Charles Bronson - Axel Foley showed an empty AutoMag casing to a gunsmith names Russ Fielding (Tom Brower) in the Beverly Hills Gun Club. When Fielding asked Foley about where did he get the empty Auto Mag casing, Foley answers that Charles Bronson gave him the empty Auto Mag casing as a Christmas gift.
  • Rambo - In the scene where the cops return to Rosewood's (Judge Reinold) apartment, there is a promotional poster of Sylvester Stallone's 1985 film Rambo: First Blood part II. This is a reference to the fact that Stallone was originally cast as Axel Foley. A Special Edition of Beverly Hills Cop details Stallone's involvement in the film project. During filming of Beverly Hills Cop II, Stallone was married briefly to Brigitte Nielsen. In the final shoot-out, Rosewood blows up a semi trailer with an M72 LAW rocket launcher by accident. Taggart is surprised and says to Rosewood "Fuck Rambo".
  • Cobra - Axel Foley was looking at the poster of Sylvester Stallone's 1986 film Cobra while making a call to Rosewood's apartment. This is another reference to the fact that Stallone was originally cast as Axel Foley in Beverly Hills Cop I. After being release from the movie, Stallone put his ideas in to making this film.
  • The Dating Game - In the fingerprint scene in Rosewood's apartment, Murphy and Reinold improvised the idea of humming the tune of the 1960s song "Spanish Flea" in which the song if from this long running American television show.
  • Harry Callahan - When Rosewood pulls a .44 Magnum Smith & Wesson Model 29 out of his holster, Axel Foley says "Who do you think you are, Clint Eastwood? Dirty Rosewood?" Axel uses the Dirty Harry reference earlier in the film during an undercover operation where he recognizes the truck driver with a stash of contraband cigarettes from the first film.
  • Star Wars - When Rosewood was driving a cement truck and accidentally smashes police cars chasing after them, Axel Foley says: "Are you driving with your eyes open? Or are you, like, using 'the force'?"
  • Gerald Ford - In order to enter a very private club, Axel says to the greeter that Taggart is Gerald Ford.

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.

Reception

Critical Reception

The film received a mixed reception.[4] [5]It currently holds 46% rating at Rottem Tomatoes with an average review of 4.8 out of 10. Most of the cast express that they felt Beverly Hills Cop was not a bad film, but it still does not match the impact of the first. Eddie Murphy admits that the best in the film series where the first two.

Box Office

Beverly Hills Cop II was one of the most anticipated films of the year 1987 and when release, it became a box office success, despite not making as much as the first Beverly Hills Cop.[6][7] The film debuted #1 at box office, earning $33 million on its opening weekend, becoming the highest weekend debut of the year 1987. It stayed on top of box office for two other weeks, making $17,126,642 and $12,424,035 respectively. The film's budget was reportedly $28 million, and the combined North American and international box office was roughly $300 million, earning over $80 million in rentals according to IMDB.com. 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

Awards

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

References

  1. ^ "Beverly Hills Cop II Production Budget". The-Numbers.
  2. ^ "`Cop Ii` Opens With Bang". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 2010-09-29.
  3. ^ BBC - Films - review - Beverly Hills Cop II DVD
  4. ^ "Cinema: Din Among the Sheltering Palms BEVERLY HILLS COP II". Time. Retrieved 2010-09-29.
  5. ^ "'Beverly Hills Ii' A Comedy Cop-out". Orlando Sentinel. Retrieved 2010-09-29.
  6. ^ "'Beverly Hills Cop II' Sets an Earnings Record". New York Times. Retrieved 2010-09-29.
  7. ^ "'Cop II' Retains Lead In Box Office Sales". New York Times. Retrieved 2010-09-29.
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