Walter Hill is one of those directors who seems never to make an average film. His movies are, generally-speaking, either very good or very bad. 48 Hours is one of his "very good" offerings. It gives Eddie Murphy one of cinema's most unforgettable movie debuts, and invents the conventions of the buddy cop genre that were to become blueprints for years to come. Every buddy picture after 1982 - including Lethal Weapon, The Last Boy Scout, Fled, Bad Boys, and a thousand more - owes something to 48 Hours.
The film opens with psychopathic Albert Ganz (James Remar) escaping from a chain gang. Determined to track down Ganz, tough cop Jack Cates (Nick Nolte) springs a fast-talking convict named Reggie Hammond (Eddie Murphy) from jail for forty-eight hours, during which time the mismatched duo must find their quarry. Cates doesn't like blacks, and Hammond doesn't like cops, so before they can even get to the business of tracking down their man they first have to come to terms with working alongside each other.
Fast-paced, energetic, foul-mouthed and funny, 48 Hours is simply a great ride. Nolte underplays brilliantly, wisely allowing Murphy to handle the loud and showy role while he etches a gruff, rugged characterisation as a cop on the warpath. The leading characters are rounded off wonderfully by James Remar, as a genuinely bad "baddie". If the plot to 48 Hours sounds like a collection of all the clichés and predictabilities that ruin most films, it's important to remember that before this film nothing like it had really been done. These plot devices and conventions are only considered "cliches" nowadays because 48 Hours was so influential, not to mention frequently-imitated, in the ensuing years. James Horner's music score is perfectly judged too. Finally, no review of 48 Hours would be complete without some acknowledgment of the film's most famous scene. I'm talking - of course - about the bit where Murphy causes a stir in a redneck bar. More often than not famous movie scenes fail to live up to their lofty reputation, but in this case that simply isn't so. It really is an electrifying screen moment.... in a film that really is an electrifying screen experience!
