Two days

One of the movies that I had sitting on my DVR for quite some time having recorded it during a free preview weekend is the original 48 Hrs.. I watched it, thinking for some reason it was coming up soon on one of the cable channels. In any case, Amazon lists it as getting a new 4K release next month. Not that I'm going to get it, since I don't know if my DVD player is capable of handling 4K. Certainly I don't need it with the old TV I have; 1080 is more than enough.

The movie is known for turning Eddie Murphy from one of the players on Saturday Night Live into a bona fide movie star, although we see neither Murphy nor the nominal male lead, Nick Nolte, at first. Instead, we get an establishing scene of a prison road works gang with the movie's main bad guy, Albert Ganz (James Remar). A truck approaches, needing water for the radiator, but that's just a ruse, as the truck is being driven by one of Ganz's associates. This results in a shootout, with the associate freeing Ganz and heading to San Francisco to bump off another associate.

Both of these events result in the San Francisco police getting involved in the case, sending out police detectibe Jack Cates (that's Nick Nolte) and a team to find Ganz and the associate. Unfortunately, the operation goes badly, with the two criminals ambushing the cops, killing the rest of Case's team and getting his revoler. So Case is going to be in some serious trouble.

Case decides to take a long-shot gamble. Ganz and his associates had stolen a large amount of money, but they haven't been able to get the money because the other guy in the robbery had hidden the money well before getting arrested, and if Ganz kills that guy, he'll never get the money. The guy in question is Reggie Hammond (Eddie Murphy), who got sentenced to three years in prison for his role. Case figures he might be able to get a weekend furlough for Reggie, who might possibly have some information on how to find Ganz and bring Ganz to justice. You might find that hard to believe it could be the case after three years, but criminals on the run often wind up being creatures of habit.

Reggie, for a whole bunch of obvious reasons, doesn't necessarily care that much for Case. Besides, Reggie has only six months left on his sentence, so maybe sitting in stir for another six months might be less dangerous. On the other hand, turning down the police presents its own problems. So Reggie goes with Case, and the two men go around San Francisco trying to find Ganz while dealing with their own severe culture clash.

48 Hrs. was one of the first buddy cop movies of the 1980s, setting up an entire subgenre after it became a huge hit. It's easy to see why it became a hit, although at the same time I don't think it's dated all that well. Still, having been on Saturday Night Live, Murphy fits the movie's comedy quite well, and does OK with the action, while in Nolte's case, it's the reverse in that he's good at action and does OK as the straight guy to Murphy. And even if the movie has dated in the past 40 years, sometimes a blast from the past can be fun.