Beverly Hills Cop II Information

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 made less money than the original Beverly Hills Cop and received mixed reviews from critics, the film was still a box office success, making $153,665,036 domestically. Aside from box office success, the film was nominated for an Academy Award and for a Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song, for the Bob Seger song "Shakedown".

Plot

Two years after the original film, Beverly Hills Police Captain 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 Department, headed by an incompetent and verbally abusive new police chief 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 and injured by Karla Fry (Brigitte Nielsen), the chief hench-woman of Maxwell Dent (Jürgen Prochnow). Finding out about the shooting by a news report, Axel Foley (Murphy) abandons his undercover duties and immediately flies out to Beverly Hills to help find out who shot Bogomil. Taggart and Rosewood agree to assist Foley because of Lutz's attempts to find an excuse to get them fired.

Posing as an undercover FBI agent to get past Lutz with the aid of Detective Jeff Friedman (Paul Reiser), Foley soon starts making the connection between the robberies and Dent. Foley 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 his investigation was on the correct track into the case.

Having foiled a robbery attempt at a bank depot, Foley is able to trick Dent's accountant Sidney Bernstein (Gilbert Gottfried) into using his computer and discovers that Dent and Karla are planning to leave the country. Foley also learns from Jan that all of Dent's businesses have had their insurance coverage canceled and are about to go bankrupt except his race track, which he is convinced is the next target. On the way to the race track, 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 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 get into a shootout with everyone involved in the deal. Dent confronts Foley in the warehouse, but Foley gets distracted by one of Dent's henchmen on the roof above him and Dent gets away. 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, after running Foley over. 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 to become the new Police Chief, and Foley returns to Detroit, but not before he gets chewed out by Inspector Todd over the phone, right after Egan called Todd to congratulate him on allowing Foley to assist them on this case.

Cast

• Eddie Murphy as Detective Axel Foley
• Judge Reinhold as Detective Billy Rosewood
• John Ashton as Detective Sergeant John Taggart
• Jürgen Prochnow as Maxwell Dent
• Ronny Cox as Andrew Bogomil
• Brigitte Nielsen as Karla Fry
• Allen Garfield as Harold Lutz
• Dean Stockwell as Charles "Chip" Cain
• Paul Reiser as Detective Jeffrey Friedman
• Gilbert Hill as Inspector Douglas Todd
• Tom Bower as Russell Fielding
• Paul Guilfoyle as Nikos "Nik" Thomopolis
• Robert Ridgely as Mayor Ted Egan
• Tommy 'Tiny' Lister as Orvis
• Chris Rock as Playboy Mansion Valet
• Hugh Hefner as Himself
• Ola Ray as Playmate
• Gilbert Gottfried as Sidney Bernstein
• Robert Pastorelli as Vinnie
• Glenn Withrow as Willie

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. Producers Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer hired Tony Scott to direct due to his success with 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.

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 film introduced George Michael's controversial song "I Want Your Sex". It also includes "Cross My Broken Heart" by The Jets (a Top 10 hit on the Billboard Hot 100) and "Shakedown" by Bob Seger which became a 1 hit on that same chart, as well as "Better Way" performed by James Ingram. As with the first film, none of Harold Faltermeyer's soundtrack score has ever been released. However, 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 film.

The soundtrack debuted at 8 on the Billboard charts and spent 26 weeks on the charts, a far cry compared to the 49 weeks spent by the first film's soundtrack. Despite this, one song from the album, "Shakedown", was nominated for an Academy Award and the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song. However, another song from the album, "I Want Your Sex", won the Razzie Award for Worst Song.

Reception

Box office

Beverly Hills Cop II was one of the most anticipated films of 1987 and became a box office success upon release, despite not making as much as Beverly Hills Cop. The film debuted at 1, earning $33 million on its opening weekend, a sales mark that would result in its being that year's highest-opening weekend debut. 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.

Critical reception

The film received a mixed reception. It currently holds 46% rating at Rotten Tomatoes with an average review of 4.8 out of 10. Film critic Ryan Cracknell noted that "Murphy still has energy and charisma to spare and raises the performances of the more subdued that surround him," while Roger Ebert (then of review duo Siskel & Ebert) gave the film only one star out of four, remarking "What is comedy? That's a pretty basic question, I know, but Beverly Hills Cop II never thought to ask it."

Accolades

Nominations

• Academy Awards
  • Best Original Song for the song "Shakedown"

• Golden Globe Awards
  • Best Original Song for the song "Shakedown"

Awards

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

• Razzie 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