Beverly Hills Cop

In a sense, the film only works because, in the real world, the system is rigged against someone like Axel Foley. Yet when Murphy seizes the screen, all bets are off, resulting in a work of racial subversion that’s both hilarious and cathartic. Read full review

Beverly Hills Cop is an action movie and an Eddie Murphy vehicle first, but Brest's dramatic intelligence surfaces often enough to make a welcome difference in what could have been an ordinary crowd-pleaser. [13 Dec. 1984, p.35]

It understands the exchange of aggression and guilt, and it’s witty about the awkward way that whites who have been taught to respect Blacks will speak and act when confronted with an actual Black man. Read full review

Murphy exudes the kind of cheeky, cocky charm that has been missing from the screen since Cagney was a pup, snarling his way out of the ghetto. But as befits a manchild of the soft-spoken '80s, there is an insinuating sweetness about the heart that is always visible on the sleeve of Murphy's habitual sweatshirt. Read full review

Beverly Hills Cop finds Eddie Murphy doing what he does best: playing the shrewdest, hippest, fastest-talking underdog in a rich man's world. Read full review

Beverly Hills Cop is an old-fashioned movie; it's a star vehicle. And the star makes it worth the price of admission. [5 Dec. 1984, p.B1]

In Hollywood terms, Beverly Hills Cop harks back to the semi- good old days, to the studio era when stars were not always relied on to fix everything - this is unquestionably a star vehicle, but the star, an employee of his own production company, has been smart enough to surround himself with other, by no means lesser lights. [4 Dec. 1984]

The result is a movie that can be wonderfully languid and wonderfully breakneck as well, a formula movie so gleefully bedizened with quirks that it always seems better than it is. [5 Dec. 1984, p.C1]

Beverly Hills Cop is no masterpiece, but it uses Murphy to maximum effect. At its best, the movie is exactly as brazen, charming and mercurial as Murphy himself, which is to say it is unimaginable without him. [3 Dec. 1984, p.81]

Eddie Murphy looks like the latest victim of the Star Magic Syndrome, in which it is assumed that a movie will be a hit simply because it stars an enormously talented person. Thus it is not necessary to give much thought to what he does or says, or to the story he finds himself occupying. Read full review

Beverly Hills Cop is more cop show than comedy riot. Expectations that Eddie Murphy's street brand of rebelliousness would devastate staid and glittery Beverly Hills are not entirely met in a film that grows increasingly dramatic.

The whole picture is edited and scored as if it were a lollapalooza of laughs. And, with Murphy busting his sides guffawing in self-congratulation, and the camera jammed into his tonsils, damned if the audience doesn't whoop and carry on as if yes, this is a wow of a comedy. [24 Dec. 1984, p.78]