Another 48 Hrs.

The movie isn't a disaster, and if you responded to the first one, its memory may carry you over the roughness, the excessive, ugly violence and lack of conviction here. Hill and his stars are merely going through the motions, but the motions are immensely familiar. If you've been there before, then you've been there. Read full review

If it does nothing else, Another 48 HRS reminds us that Murphy is a big, genuine talent. Now it's time for him to make a good movie. Read full review

Another 48 HRS. doesn't offer a whole lot beyond Eddie Murphy, Nick Nolte, and Walter Hill's action-scene flair, but are you telling me the first 48 HRS. did? Bottom line: Eddie-Nick enthusiasts and Paramount accountants won't cry 96 tears. [8 Jun 1990, p.1D]

It's only too bad nobody lectured the producers about creative cowardice. If someone had, Another 48 Hrs. might have been another good movie instead of just another damned sequel. Read full review

Purposeless waste of director Walter Hill's energies. Read full review

This is a generic action picture. What also is missing are scenes in which Nolte and Murphy could relate to each other quietly and with some wit. [8 Jun 1990, p.C]

The story is mostly a rehash of the original "48 Hrs.," with the same hard-boiled mixture of violence and wisecracks. Directed by Walter Hill, who specializes in this kind of thing and gives it a certain conviction, if little else. [13 Jul 1990, p.10]

Though the body count is high, all of the people killed are faceless or only minor characters, until the end. It's as if the movie were saying that lethal violence is acceptable (and fun) as long as the victims - like the victims of guided missiles and high-altitude bombing - remain anonymous. Any comedy that allows the mind to ponder high-altitude bombing is in deep trouble. Read full review

Eddie Murphy and Nick Nolte are back in Another 48 HRS., and so is some of the chemistry between them. But although this sequel is more amped up than the original "48 HRS.," most of the thrills are gone. [8 Jun 1990, p.35]

Walter Hill, who also directed the first film, surely recognizes the hollowness of what he's doing here. He tries to ram through the muddled exposition as quickly as possible; essentially, the film is wall-to-wall mayhem, with more shots of hurled bodies shattering windows than I've ever seen in a movie. [8 Jun 1990, p.1]

Judged purely by what director Walter Hill has put on the screen, Another 48 Hrs. is a movie mainly about the several pretty ways that glass shatters when bullets or bodies are propelled through it. [25 June 1990, p.77]

What seems more problematic is the virtual exaltation of Dirty Harry vigilantism, the storm trooper mentality and behavior on Nolte's part that the film breezily takes for granted; if there's any irony about it, it's carefully designed to wash over the storm trooper types in the audience and not give offense to them--only to the rest of us. Read full review

The first 48 HRS. was similiarly nasty and violent, and it too was emptier than the inside of an efficient bell jar, but it was funny. Eight years later, director Walter Hill can find nothing to laugh about - the violence in this appalling picture is played out in a mirthlessly misanthropic vacuum. [8 Jun 1990, p.C1]