Blank Check with Griffin & David - Beverly Hills Cop with Adil & Bilall

Episode Date: June 16, 2024

An indelible synth theme by Harold Faltermeyer. A scene-stealing turn from Bronson Pinchot. A banana in a tailpipe. EDDIE FREAKING MURPHY. It’s no wonder that Martin Brest’s Beverly Hills Cop is one of the most beloved action comedies (and still the highest-grossing R-rated film adjusted for inflation). We couldn’t be more thrilled to have two of the hottest action directors in Hollywood - Bad Boys: Ride or Die’s Adil & Bilall - join us to talk about Brest’s blockbuster second feature, bringing all the expertise from their years spent developing Beverly Hills Cop 4. We’re getting into the Stallone of it all, the Simpson/Bruckheimer of it all, the Judge Reinhold of it all - while also taking some time to unpack the specific nuances that Brest brings as a director (as opposed to Tony Scott’s take on the sequel). And….yes. We talk about BATGIRL. This episode is sponsored by: Bombas (bombas.com/check CODE: CHECK) MUBI (mubi.com/blankcheck) Join our Patreon at patreon.com/blankcheck Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter and Instagram! 

Blackjack with Griffin and David Blackjack with Griffin and David Don't know what to say or to expect All you need to know is that the name of the show is Blackjack Before I go, I just want you two to know something, alright? The Supercop story was working, okay? It was working, and you guys just messed it up, okay? Before I go, I just want you two to know something. All right. The super cop story was working. Okay. It was working and you guys just messed it up. Okay.

I'm trying to figure you guys out, but I haven't yet, but it's cool. You fuck up a perfectly good podcast. Yeah, that's good. That's good. It's actually you're not really doing any either. Which is why I was going to say, this is the thing I always find fascinating rewatching this movie, which I, this is my second time watching this movie maybe this calendar year. Sure.

I watch it fairly often. Mm-hmm. For most of the movie, he's not doing Eddie to the degree you remember him doing it. Not at all. It's a much more subdued performance. Yeah. Than the cultural memory of it. Understated film in every way in the Eddie-Oo-ver,

and even in the Beverly Hills Cop-Oo-ver. Yes, yes, he's kind of quiet in this, for how much he's like this fucking Bugs Bunny-style shit-stirrer. Right. But it's hard to impersonate quiet Eddie. Well, you did a great job. I didn't, I just said it in my own voice. We'll introduce the show.

We gotta kick right off. With Griffin and David on Griffin. I'm David. It's a podcast about filmography's directors who have massive success Early on in their careers and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want Sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce, baby That's a little bit of an impression I can do that part of it This is a mini series on the films of Martin Brest. And today we're talking about- What's it called?

It's called Podverly Hills Cast. Very good. And we've reached the titular episode. Not just his biggest hit, but one of the biggest hits of all time. For about 20 years, it was the highest grossing R rated movie ever. What beat it?

The Matrix? It was either Matrix or Passion of the Crest. And then both ended up beating it now. I think it's Deadpool Sure, that's fine who like popped into Detroit and said hey axle. I beat your record. He probably knew right right right Beverly Hills cop Beverly Hills cop Martin Bress film a big movie. Yeah, one of the most influential of all time So who we got to talk about it two big-ass guests yeah another a fellow ampersand yeah right along with Griffin and David you mean yes yeah they are inexplicably on this show despite being the directors of bad boys ride or die

yep in theaters this June yeah I guess they I just come out by the time this episode comes out sure this episode comes out June 16th So it's in theaters. It just came out. I was see bad boys ride or die a Dylan below Thank you so much for being on the show. Yo, what's up guys having us? Your publicist reached out and said you were fans of that you want to come on the show, which is dumb Which is the least I've ever respected you guys as artists out and said you were fans that you wanted to come on the show, which is dumb. Which is the least I've ever respected you guys as artists. It is what it is. But you guys have had this like incredible career arc.

You started out making like independent films in Belgium and then now have like escalated to the highest levels of Hollywood blockbuster-dom. your your publicist reached out and we were trying to figure out if there was like a good episode to have you on because we booked so stupidly far in advance we wanted to see if there's anything that would time out to the new bad boys coming out and then suddenly Beverly Hills cop opened up as an episode and I remembered that you guys were originally announced to direct Beverly Hills Cop 4 is that correct? Yeah that is correct. So is this like a major movie for the two of you? Absolutely I think that you know growing

up in Belgium that movie was was one of my favorite all-time favorite movies ever and that's also a movie that made me a fan of Eddie Murphy. Right. That song is so iconic. That movie is iconic. Really changed. Yeah, I mean, it's a big impact on us and on the world. Yeah, it is one of those films that like you feel Hollywood has just been chasing

now for 40 years? Yeah, damn, yeah, 40 years. Yeah, and it's fascinating because you dig into this movie and almost everything that works about it was a mistake. Right. Or was something that was like changed on the fly. And like just rewatching the film, you're like, this is the building blocks

of what every executive is trying to get every other movie to be now on purpose. Right. And it was you're right. It is a story of like a bunch of happy accidents creating a pretty like like you say, low key movie for like a crime comedy. Like it's it's not a crazy movie. And yet it creates like a whole crazy world. There's one crazy car chase at the beginning. Yeah. And there's one big shootout at the end.

Yeah. Sounds like it sounds big shootout at the end. Sounds like a Jerry Bruckheimer formula. Happy accidents. It's a bit like his trademark. That's the way that he in the 80s, you know, him together with Don Simpson, they would do crazy stuff and stuff that were maybe also lower budget than what the rivals were doing.

And yet these movies were fresh in the 80s and had like this tremendous amount of success. Yeah, this is kind of his first like action movie, right? Because he'd done Flashdance before this. Right, they had done Flashdance before this. That's the other thing. Right, this basically makes the Brad Heimer formula. Right. It's also funny that it's like a comedy that doesn't have obvious comedy set pieces.

Well, it's this. All the comedy is conversations. It's right. It's it. The set pieces are him bouncing off of somebody. Right. And there are a couple scenes he basically wills into being set pieces by making really strong comedic choices.

But there aren't on paper like he walks into this room and this situation is so funny. The bad guys are straight. I think that's also what's, what's a kind of a trademark of, uh, not only Jerry Brookheimer and Don Simpson, but just the, you could say the action comedy or the big action movies of, of the eighties. If you think about diehard or lethal weapon, there's a lot of comedy coming from the characters coming from the dialogue and the banter, but the bad guys are straight and the danger is real.

And that is what, you know, what we're kind of missing also nowadays. I think that without Beverly Hills Cop, you would never had a bad boys movie, Michael Bay's first bad boys film. Yeah. I mean, it's true. Like now it feels like every action film,

the villain has to be this like big broad performance, be it comedic or be it like, even in serious action movies, serious action. It's just like, let's hire a British playwright. He'll sit behind a desk. He's mean. We get it. Like, he's the problem. That's so hard to replicate about this movie is like you basically construct a serious Sylvester Stallone movie, build it around him. Then Stallone walks and you just change the actor. And like a Bugs Bunny cartoon where he pops out of his hole into the wrong place and causes trouble. You have Eddie Murphy just entering someone else's movie basically.

And everyone else kind of still thinks they're in the Stallone version. Yeah, that's true. Right. It's like no one else got the memo. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You're right. And which is perfect. Which is perfect. And Brest is like in complete control of the dial of making those two things mesh. And quietly the most satisfying thing in the movie is watching him like slowly convert John Ashton and Judge Reinhold to his movie. Like they start out in the Stallone and they're the two people he kind of brings over. Right, they're like, come on, we have to go buy the book.

Come on. What are you doing? Like this is, yeah. But then they're like, on the other hand, this guy's fucking popping. He's probably about to start a 10 year uncontested run as America's biggest movie star. Yeah, exactly. There's also, you know, Eddie Murphy at that time was for such a young age at the height of his power on the comedy scene. And and what Jerry and Don Simpson and obviously also director Martin Brest saw was like this is the new guy, this is a rising star

and he was not internationally famous yet so that's really the movie that brought him to the world that's why we didn't know any Murphy through his comedy. We knew him through the movies like Beverly Hills Cop. Yeah, what's your origin story? Is this an early one for you? When you're young, are you getting into Hollywood action movies? And then, I don't know, you're about my age, right? In the 90s?

What's the backstory with you and Beverly Hills Cop? Yeah, it's just when you're a kid, you see Beverly Hills Cop, just one of the coolest cops you ever saw on television. And you're like, you know, he's cool, he's funny, he's breaking the rules. And that is so much fun to see. And at the same time, because it's like a really grounded story, you feel like it's real. But he just makes it so, you know, attractive.

And, and when I was, yeah, when I was a kid and you just wanted to be part of that. Yeah. What about you, Griff? Where are you a Beverly Hills cop? Uh, that's a good question. I think I saw it when I was probably a little too young. I saw it maybe when I was like nine or ten Yeah, because I was getting into Eddie Murphy, but mostly through like the family movies your dr

Doolittle right and my mom who was very overprotective and would block a lot of stuff I wanted to watch was like you should watch Beverly Hills cop if you think Eddie Murphy is funny You should watch Beverly Hills cop. That's when he's really at his funniest. Right. And like rented it and kind of got it. It's kind of grown up. It's kind of too grown up for you, I would say, at that age, because the humor is actually subtle. Yes. Which I didn't get as like and I am a big fan of the Eddie Murphy's 90 family comedy. Sure. But they're a lot louder.

It's a different register. I was also deep into SNL, so I was watching like Eddie SNL best doves and stuff like that Right and then I feel like when I was like 19 I went through like an insane Eddie Murphy phase where I watched the stand-up movies and then I like filled in the gaps and All the movies I hadn't seen I have said before That I think in many ways he is like the greatest raw talent movie star of all time, right? I just think few guys are like that charismatic and that skilled at every single possible thing you could want a movie star to do. And I think the range of his career is insane.

And that's when I sort of rewatched Beverly Hills Cop. And I think around that time, found out the backstory of how it came together. And I was like, well, now I totally get this thing. And it's become a thing I watch like once a year since then. Was Bruckheimer the guys? Was he? You come onto Beverly Hills Cop 4 first in development and then through that you get Bad Boys for Life. Is that correct? Yeah, so, you know, we were fans of Jerry Bruckheimer films like, you know,iverville's Cop, also Top Gun and Bad Boys,

Paris the Caribbean. So, you know, he's a very iconic producer. So as when we were students, our dream would be like, if one day we get the chance to go to Hollywood, then the first thing we're going to ask for is Bad Boys 3 because they had not made it yet. So that was, you know, the very first meeting we had with Jerry in 2015. We were like, hey, can we do Bad Boys? So that was the very first meeting we had with Jerry in 2015. We were like, hey, can we do Bad Boys?

And he said the movie is not available because back then it was Joe Carnahan that was attached to that. So we were like, you know, I mean, even though we were big fans of Joe Carnahan, we were kind of disappointed that we couldn't get that project. That's where in 2016 Beverly Hills Cop 4 came by. And at that time it was still set up at Paramount. So basically our first feature film that we got was Beverly Hills Cop 4. That was like two years before we got the job of Bad Boys.

And you had made your first two features at that point or just the first one? No, yeah, we had done two features. We had done the movie that sort of was our ticket to Hollywood. It was a Romeo and Juliet story set in the gangs of Brussels called Black. And that was a movie that Will Smith has seen and Jerry and we won a prize at the TIFF Toronto Film Festival. So that was the movie that based on that movie we got the job for for Beverly Hills Cop. I've seen Rebel, the most recent film you made in between

the bad boys, that is so incredibly good and is fairly available in the states. Black and Gangster are kind of hard to watch now. Yeah it's like you gotta you gotta really search for it maybe on iTunes I don I don't know, but there's always a question. Like, where the fuck can we find those movies? Guys, use some Blu-rays. Let's see, wait a second. Yeah, we should fix that. Maybe after Bad Boys 4 comes out,

or yeah, by the time this podcast is there, it's you success, obviously, inshallah. Inshallah, golly, it's hard to find. Damn. Yeah, Rebel just got a good Blu-ray release. Cool. From Yellowville, I think. Yeah.

That's like exactly. Yeah, you got that set. The first two, I was doing some scanning earlier this morning. Black, I think you can import a French DVD. Probably. Probably. We can send you a link. You know, we have a V-mail link somewhere that we can send you guys.

Just send it to your mail. Gangsta, I think if you do some ExpressVPN toggling, you might be able to find it on some of the streaming services in other countries. Yeah, but wait, so what is that like coming on board? You're coming on board this movie that's like, what, 20 plus

years, everyone's been like will there be another one? Like is it a full feature? And it's like, this is the script, this is Eddie, you guys do it? Or is it still like a complete mystery what the movie will actually be? Yeah, yeah, what were you coming onto at that point? Yeah, no, at the time there was already a script

and that's when we read it and yeah, we were like, ah, that's a super fresh take. For us also just creatively, it was a really interesting approach. And just you know just the idea of working with Eddie was just like mind-blowing. And then we met Eddie for the first time and that was yeah I mean it's like an unforgettable scene. And we felt just like unbelievable like working with a legend like him and and seeing you know his energy and we were like it's gonna be a good movie

we'll direct the shit out of this. 2016. Oh man it's that long ago. 2016 that's damn that's a long time ago. I'm curious cuz as David said it was like 20 plus years of development of like, will they ever make a Beverly Hills Cop 4, right? The first two were so huge, the third was kind of like a bit of a disappointment. And I feel like for decades, I would just read Eddie Murphy and interviews say like, I'm really unhappy with the third movie.

Right. I'd like to do a fourth to try to redeem it, but I also don't want to do it unless it feels totally right. And there was this feeling of like, three got away from the character. This weird arc of like, what we were saying of the first movie being this perfect balance, then the second movie, you get Tony Scott,

like the King of Bruckheimer style, and the movie is also goofier and more comedic on paper. Mega over the top, mega violent, mega... Yeah, I like Beverly Hills Cop 2 a lot, to be clear. But it is, right, it is not restrained. The third one is Landis, who's traditionally a goofier Hollywood comedy director, but Eddie is much more straight in that.

It's kind of structurally more of a conventional action movie. When you guys are having those meetings, are there things you're identifying of like, this is how we get Axel Foley back on track? This is what is interesting about Axel. What is the core of Beverly Hills Cop and Axel Foley? Obviously I know you guys didn't end up making the movie. Yeah, but you're having all these conversations.

Yeah, hypothetically. In another universe. Yeah, in another multiverse. So yeah, the thing is that what we loved about the first two movies and the, you know, the first movie, it got nominated for an Oscar for best screenplay. So he was, you know, people forget that it was an Oscar movie. And Martin Brest was, you know, he was really good at putting, like when it was a serious story, he would put comedy in it.

Or if it was like a comedic story, he would put some serious aspect in it. And it was always about the characters. It was also what Jerry always told us. It's all about the characters and the humanity of the characters. That's why those movies are iconic. You remember Axel Fowl and you remember Taggart and Rosewood. And we loved the grittiness that you had of the first film, which is quite serious.

The scenes when you have the bad guys and they kill his best friend at the beginning of the movie, if you watch it today, it's very gritty. It's almost like a scene from The Wire. And it has that vibe. And I think that that's also why they responded to our work because if you watch it in black, it's a really pretty harsh story as well. And at the same time, we loved so much Tony Scott and his style and, you know, Bruckheimer and Tony Scott's like, you know, it's like also Michael Bay or early Michael Bay has

really that distinct, it's very stylish, you would say, maybe it's over the top where we thought it was cool. So we really wanted to do a blend of that grittiness, really, you know, ground story. Uh, and at the same time, a stylish Tony Scott homage. So that's, that's kind of the vibe that, that we had. And, and I think that if you watch bad boys for life, you sort of recognize that vibe, you know, bad boys, even though it's a sequel to a Michael Bay movie for us, it was more like an homage to the 19th style of Tony Scott and Jerry Bheimer. I think yeah it's it's a thing I really liked about Bad Boys for Life and I'm excited to see the new one as well is that like I think you guys put all of those things in the pot. Let's let's dig into the development of this because it is a crazy development. It's one of those like incredible legendary Hollywood stories. David, this episode brought to you by Mubi.

Oh, those curated streaming service guys who are dedicated to elevating great cinema from around the globe. The curated streaming service. Me turning to the camera, but I've got like a remote in my hand. They're dedicated to elevating great cinema from around the globe. We know how Mubi works. We know how movie works. We know it. We know how movie works.

We know how movie works. From iconic directors to emerging authors, there's always something new to discover. Okay, so we like movie. They hand select films, obviously best of cinema, but they've also got all kinds of groups that they curate now, right? This month on MUBI US, you can catch a place of our own,

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A pretty excellent micro budget comedy film is streaming on there on movie. Some other films in this series, the Queer Cinema series, you got Great Fetum, which I've always wanted to see, which is about gay resilience and resistance to post-war Germany with Franz Vakowski. Apparently also, Karyada's film Monster will be streaming on Movie US from June 7th. That's a, yeah. Which is a, which won, I think won the Queer Palm last year at the Cannes Film Festival. River of Grass, Kelly Rieckert's first film, which can oftentimes be tough to see.

It's tough to watch too. Sorry, Kelly. It's good as hell though. Yeah, no, I like that movie. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, Monsters Cool. I don't know. It's movies.

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Chicken. She'd work through the whole farm. I'd like to see horse. You sure would. 1975 Michael Eisner, who is at that point president of Paramount. One day he'll run Disney. Obviously he's speeding on an L.A. Friedman. He gets Friedman free the L.A. freeway. Geez Christ.

Stopped by a policeman is says that the policeman was efficient, rude with an air air superiority and quiet condescension. I mean, you were speeding, Michael, but I understand. And he goes into the office and is like, we

should do a movie about a Hollywood cop. Like, but that's it. Basically he gets pulled over for speeding and it's like, I've got an idea. That's a classic, like coked out Hollywood development story of like a cop over and I got an idea for a movie. Now Don Simpson, who is no longer with us, but is of course the producer of this film says that's all bullshit. And the movie had been developed for years before Michael Eisner cooked up this stupid

story. Who knows what the answer is? But like, no, yeah, it was Don's idea. And Eisner just like took credit for it. Who knows? Success has many fathers failures and orphan. Yeah. But obviously Don and Jerry, at that point they're ensconced at a Paramount. They've done flash dance, which is this movie that like sounds absurd. It's like, oh, yeah, this like hot Pittsburgh Spielberg Steelworker wants to be a dancer and they make it into this like glossy hit.

And that's sort of this thing of like, oh, these guys must know something if they're like able to turn this around. Right. It's what we often I mean, we often talk about it. We always talk about through the prism of directors with a blank check thing of like, we cannot quantify why this was a success outside of the notion that maybe these people have the secret formula that we don't. So let's just let them do more. Right. So they start getting in writers to try and crack this idea. And basically they're like, we need an outsider thing, right? Like we need he, you know, one writer, uh, Danilo Bach comes in and sort of creates the villain, which is this like, you

know, nasty Beverly Hills businessman guy. And they're like, right. Okay. So we need someone who's going to like crack that open. Sure. Daniel Petrie who comes in, who I think is the only credited screenwriter, right? Which is why, cause this movie has like 8 trillion writers on it before Eddie Murphy comes to set and just does whatever he wants. edited screenwriter, right? Which is why, because this movie has like eight trillion writers on it before Eddie Murphy comes to set and just does whatever he wants. And he's like he brings in like the cops from Detroit.

He's a fish out of water. His friends been killed. All of that stuff is Petrie's whatever spine. And then Bruckheimer sees a picture of Mickey Rourke in Diner and tears it out and is like, this is who I want. Yeah. So Mickey Rourke, like young, cool, Pope of Greenwich Village, Mickey Rourke is the first choice. He drops out. Sylvester Stallone steps in and of course is like, I'm going to rewrite this movie. I'm going to turn him back into like a bloody action movie. Yes. And part of it was, as has always been the legend, you know, the constant like throughout the 80s and 90s,

arms race between Schwarzenegger and Stallone, where they were constantly trying to one up each other. This is right when Schwarzenegger is starting to pop. Yes, yes, so we need to make bigger, bigger, bigger. Right, yeah. And Stallone's like, I gotta make the most violent movie of all time, Yes. And so we need to watch the Terminator. Bigger, bigger, bigger. Right, yeah. And Stallone's like, I gotta make the most violent movie of all time. That he starts to put onto Beverly Hills Cop his ambition of, I've had this dream of making

a movie that has absurd amounts of violence and I think this is the right vehicle for it. Right. Now meanwhile, Martin Brest is getting ready to make War Games. He is made going in style, it did pretty well. And he gets hired onto this movie that, you know, is pretty much ready to go. Right. Matthew Broderick, he claims he hired Matthew Broderick.

But apart from that, I think War Games was like, you know, an existing script that he's coming on board. And then he gets fired and replaced by John Badham. He says he's- Like a week into filming? Yes. He says he spent more times on Wargame than Beverly Hills Cop. He was on it for a year and a half full time and just before production, an

executive producer who he won't mentioned basically came in and fires him. He says three weeks into production. OK, I don't. He's we assume he's talking about Leonard Goldberg, who's a famous Fox president at the time. I don't really know why he got fired I guess just probably because he was like I'm gonna do it my way and this producer was like this is what the movie needs to be. It seems like that kind of a fight. Also I mean as we will we've already touched on and we'll touch on

even more in this series. Brest notoriously meticulous. Yeah I assume you guys have never met Marty Brest but he's got this reputation. We heard he's very Uncertainty Uncertainty Uncertainty Uncertainty Uncertainty Uncertainty Uncertainty Uncertainty Uncertainty

Uncertainty Uncertainty Uncertainty Uncertainty Uncertainty thing professionally that can happen to a major film director. You've been tagged early in your career with this disaster. Like, right. Yeah. You were on a movie and they fired you from it. You guys, of course, ended up being the canaries in the coal mine for the new worst thing that

can happen to a director. That's what we call the movie jail, basically. You're in movie jail. And I believe that Jerry told Martin Brest probably the same thing he told us. I'm going to get you out of movie jail. So I think that's literally it. Like they, Simpson and Bruckheimer pursue him. They're like, come make this movie.

Sylvester Stallone is going to direct it. Simpson says, look, he's smart and funny, which is hard to get. And this is the- Stallone's not going to get directed, Stallone's going to get directed. No, I'm saying Stallone's the star, but I'm saying like they're like, come in.

This is the Sly Stallone project. Direct this for us, please And Simpsons line is we always liked Marty and if he killed a 13 year old dog We'd still have hired him, which is a great like Don Simpson Exactly have you guys seen going in style? Yes, yes, yes. It's so fucking good and it is like ostensibly a low-level crime comedy in a way good and it is like ostensibly a low level crime comedy in a way. But it isn't an obvious choice to look at that movie and be like, this guy should direct a full on action film. Yeah, it is. Yeah. Yeah. It's just like going in style has the humanity.

You know, that's, that's what, that's what, um, what Jerry and Don Simpson probably responded to. like these three characters, these three old guys are iconic and you feel for them. And it's, you know, that's probably why they responded to and it feels real. Like there's something, like there's a kind of quality vibe to it. It takes, even though there's humor of it,

there's a kind of earnestness in it and seriousness. And you understand how serious Martin Brest takes that movie, the characters and the story. 100%. The other thing which this movie is just a perfect example of is like a lot of the great Lightning in a Bottle movies in history come out of a combination of people who all have something to prove. I think Breast being in a position where he's just suffered this setback. Yeah, he's he's in this mindset of like if if I fuck this up, I'm, you know, cooked. Like this has to my next job has to be brilliant after getting fired from war games. And that's why he's resistant because he's like this script seems off.

The tone is weird. I don't want to do it. He rejects them multiple times. Eventually he decides because they keep badgering him, he will flip a coin. And he says he will adhere to the outcome. It came up heads. So he said he'd do it. He starts working on it.

And there's this big fight over like, look, this script is light. Stallone wants something incredibly bloody and heavy. And two weeks in Stallone's like, fine, I'm going to leave the project. Like Stallone loses in a way, or at least like they won't give on the script. And Stallone basically takes all the ideas of what he wanted Beverly Hills Cop to be and puts them onto Cobra. Cobra is like the wild, unchained kid. Crazy violence.

Cobra is just like, the premise is just like, what if this cop shot criminals to death until they were dead? And to be clear, Cobra kind of rules. Yeah, but it's like, it's got like rocks in its head. Yes, well, it doesn't make sense to put that energy onto the Beverly Hills cop premise. Whereas Cobra, he was just like, let's start from the ground up of just, we

live in the most insane world possible. I cut pizza with a pair of scissors. Where are you guys on Stallone actually? Do you guys like that sort of vibe to the eighties mega action Stallone? Yeah, for me, like I watched also Beverly Hills Cop when I was a kid. So I was only like six years old or something like that. And for me, I could take it. The Stallone movies, they were so violent that I had nightmares. They are nasty, especially that late 80s Stallone.

Yeah. Yeah, I was a gigantic fan of Stallone and Schwarzenegger, you know, those wanted to be like them working out, you know, want to be muscled. No, Stallone, I love Stallone. But. No, Stallone, I love Stallone. For me Stallone was a bit too violent. For some reason his movie, I need to re-watch it, but I loved Schwarzenegger, but I felt like the Schwarzenegger movies I could handle. It was really funny sometimes.

Sometimes, except it was a bit lighter, Stallone was really rough. I had the feeling it was dark and rough. Because the Schwarzenegger movies have to acknowledge the elephant in the room with this guy is incongruous. He doesn't really make sense in the world. No human being has ever looked like this before. Right. Stallone says, yeah, I read the script and it didn't really, you know, work for what I do. So I rewrote it to do what I do best.

And by the time it was done, it looked like the opening scene from Saving Private Ryan. That's a bit different. The funny thing is, like, Stallone coming right off of Rocky could have done a good Beverly Hills cop. When Roger Ebert was like, this guy's the new Brando. He's a blue collar guy. Right. Right.

He's this sort of like sad poet of the streets, right? Right. Like of the out. The fish out of water concept. Yeah, totally. But that's ten years prior. By this point he's pretty... By the 80s he's trying to become as cartoonish as Schwarzenegger.

Like he's looking to make himself in a weird way less human. And more like sort of just pure icon. Which is wrong for this movie where the whole kind of secret sauce of this film is that like... Axel Foley is a people person. Right. He knows how to connect to other people. You need someone who's like on the level. Yeah. And also also the fact that that, you know, he's an African-American lead in an action movie like that, you know, or action comedy, a mainstream

movie that it was not the usual thing to do as a main character. And that's also why Jerry and Dom, you know, were really like pioneers on that front. But also if Jerry Bruckheimer and Don Simpson had gone to Paramount in 1983 and said, here's our premise, it's a 23 year old black cop in Beverly Hills, Paramount either would have said no, or they would have said,

here's $2 dollars to make that. Yes. This is not a major movie. This will not play internationally, right? Like they would have thrown all the old racist axioms at it. Right. And shut it down or shrunk it.

The only way this movie gets made at this level with a black lead is what we're saying, which is the whole movie has been built and then the star is gone. And suddenly everyone's like, we have this hole to fill. Can we like take a flyer? Exactly. They bring in Murphy.

Now Murphy obviously has done 48 hours in trading places and he's done Delirious, his big standup special. And obviously he was on SNL. That's all he's done so far. As you guys said, absurdly young. The thing I say too often on this podcast, because it never ceases to blow my mind, he starts standup when he's done so far. As you guys said, absurdly young. The thing I say too often on this podcast, because it never ceases to blow my mind, he starts stand-up when he's 15 or 16.

He gets on SNL when he's 19. 48 hours, he's 21. Trading places, he's 22. I guess Delirious comes out that same year, and Beverly Hills copies 23. And that run, basically, of of four years from 1980 to 1984, you're like, well, this is undeniably become the most famous entertainer.

But Paramount is like, this guy's a second banana. He's second banana in 48 hours. They claim he's one in trading places too. That's kind of a stretch, but he's second build. They're both two-handers. Even if I would argue he steals both movies, it's like they have the security in their minds of like, we're putting him next to an established white star. But Breast says basically like we're making a movie that can be the whole the bar scene in 48 hours is the whole movie.

Right. Like, which is obviously the big scene in 48 hours where Eddie Murphy like uncorks. And pretends to be a cop. Right. And they're like, this can just be the movie. Like we've like lucked into something sensational here. Yeah. And it's as you guys are sort of getting at, it's like, it's hard to imagine this script making sense with a white guy in the center. Yeah.

Like everything that's sort of like subtextual about the sort of class commentary of it and the culture clash and all of that becomes so much more explicit When you just put Eddie Murphy in the center and you don't have everyone like say the thing right? Which is when he walks into a room everyone gets a little bit nervous Yeah, it's it's the it makes it all edgy all of a sudden by having Eddie Murphy in it And you're also rooting for him to fuck with people you want him him to get away with a lie. So that's the thing.

It's also just the gap between, you know, he's African American from Detroit, from the ghetto. And with Beverly Hills, everything just amplifies. Yes. It reminds us of us, you know, like two punks from Belgium, Moroccan, and drop as in that kind of world, whether it's in Belgium, you know, or in LA. Yeah, that's why we really related to these characters. So it is Axel Foley or Michael Marcus. For me, really, the first time I came to LA, we were driving through Beverly Hills.

Just had that scene in my mind. I was Eddie Murphy. I was Axel Foley. Like, oh shit. Lifting my mind. I was Eddie Murphy. I was Exile Foley like oh shit This is lifting up your sunglasses and checking out dogs And also the palm trees and we didn't belong we didn't belong that's for sure Do you guys like still feel that way at all? I mean your publicist was just saying that you you don't live in LA that you're you're recording right now from there because you're on the beginning of your press tour for the new Bad Boys and everything. But like, you guys have now become very established in the industry.

Do you still feel like that's its own world to you or do you feel more like at home in it? Now we still, yeah, we still live in Belgium. Like, we still live in Belgium, we still live in Brussels, in a pretty rough neighborhood for some reason. But it feels like home. We need a bit of roughness. Yeah, a bit of roughness so we know where reality is.

And also just for us as directors, our ideal career is to make movies here in LA, the big blockbusters, and then also independent smaller movies around the world. I mean, right, you're kind of switching between right, right, right, right. Not to blow too much smoke up your asses, but you guys have worked so much. You've been like doing so much shit the last five years. But the thing I respect the most is that you guys are truly doing the sort of like one for me, one for them alternation.

That so often, like that used to be the model. Like, oh, you know, people who like making both small personal stories and bigger studio films, they use the bigger studio films to give themselves the cache to like Soderbergh style, do the smaller films in between. And so often now someone gets hired onto something like Bad Boys for Life

and then they just get stuck only making movies of that size over and over and over again. Right, you gotta make the next big thing over and over. And you guys have already been flipping back and forth. Yeah, I think it's very important because you learn from both. You learn from the big Hollywood blockbusters like on a technical level and also how to handle

or how to defend your ideas in front of 20 people. Yeah. And you get just the chance to work with the biggest stars and do big action sequences. And you use those things that we learned, we use that in more the European or the Belgian project, which we did with Rebel on a technical level. And at the same time, when you do a European project, you take chances, you do crazy stuff, you really like, you know, you take risks, which you cannot really do in Hollywood on the same level.

And if the risks, you know, give you a reward and it's successful. Well, you use that experience to push the Hollywood project a little bit to the limits so that it doesn't become something generic. The two things feed each other. Right, yeah. How far out from filming start did Eddie get hired?

Three weeks, three weeks out. Insane. Basically they retool, they push back filming another month, I think, to retool the script, but basically, Breast says, we did not have a script, we had plot, we had like a story, but it would truly be like Brest, Murphy, apparently Sam Simon, the Simpsons writer, doing Punch-Up day of, and like it would

truly be like the next scenes in a bar, get a bar? Like, and it's like, what happens in the bar? And it's like, we'll figure it out. It feels like the way they shoot Curb Your Enthusiasm, where it's like they plot it out, they know the scenes, and they're like, here's the end objective. By the end of this scene, Larry has to pit this person off. But with this movie, it's like, by the end of this scene, Axel has to get this piece of information. It has to lead him to the next clue or whatever. But every scene's basically being constructed on the fly.

Yes, and Brecht says they would almost always throw to Eddie and be like, can you come up with something? And pretty much always liked what you come up with something? And pretty much always liked what he came up with. Like if they didn't have a line or if they didn't have some kind of way out of a story jam, Eddie Murphy would figure it out. They all talk about it.

It's this one of these things where it's like, everyone talks about it in a happy way because they made a good movie that was a huge hit. I think it was probably an incredibly frustrating movie to make. Like, Eddie Murphy. Fun chaos. Fun chaos.

Yeah. Like, Eddie Murphy is obviously this, like, giant personality who's coming up with stuff. Bruckheimer and Simpson are not exactly the, like, you know, most hands-off producers. Yeah. Breast is a huge control freak. Yes. And at one point, Petrie has this story where he ran into Marty Brest like 30 years later, and he says, I'm sorry if I was ever an asshole making that movie.

And he says, I'm sorry if I was ever an asshole, but I don't remember you being an asshole. I remember you being headstrong. And Petrie's like, that was the right word. Everyone was just very headstrong. Yeah, there have always been these sort of stories of like Brest maintaining some relative sense of cool on set and then getting to the editing room and losing his mind and being like Is any of this gonna cut together right because it's so improvisational and also like Murphy is rarely doing the same thing on two takes let alone like separate pieces of coverage

But it is one of those things where like a lot of this movie plays out in Masters plays out in like wide shots You know Versus a lot of movies today that we're used to seeing, like comedies that are very improv based, they start to feel a little isolating because you basically like cut to a close up of one guy going on a 30 second improv run that feels like it has nothing to do with the rest of the movie.

And then it cuts back to the wide shot because they don't have that run for any other angle. Right, they just let the camera roll and he was like, do stuff. Right, yeah. Whereas this movie in the one shot, you're almost always seeing Eddie come up with something

and everyone react to him in real time. Yeah, how do you guys approach it? Because like you're doing bad boys, like I assume Martin does a lot of that kind of stuff, right? Like, or is it not, is it more tightly controlled these days? Well, I think it's mostly in the rehearsals actually. It's in the rehearsals that we do like, you know, we talk about the scene and then we

start, they start to improv and then we adapt it in the screenplay. But once we're on set, everything is like, you know, we don't have the time to, you know, play around and then that's when we shoot what we have done in the rehearsals. But because they improv so much during the rehearsal, it still has that vibe of spontaneity and sometimes it's just like one day or two days before we are about to shoot. But once we have it, once we have a couple of takes that are according to what we rehearsed, we always let them just go loco and then they always come up with like some happy accidents. That's pretty fun.

Well, they've also been playing these characters for like close to 30 years. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. They have a lot of experience on that and a lot of comedic experience. Yeah. You're right. Just on other movies, too. Right. On like having the movie on your shoulders like that. I think with Breast, it's like, he's very methodical, he's very OCD, that's part of why he gets dismissed from war games probably, is they're like,

this process makes no sense. Judge Reinhold says that he would do things like, be like, perfect, that was perfect, let's do one more day. And everyone would be like, what is the matter with you? But I think he, Breast knows he has to pull back a little bit and let more chaos in because he just got fired. That's what I was going to say. There's like some weird kind of like agreed upon BDSM

in the process of making this movie, where Breast is like choosing to allow himself to be a little tortured by creating a circumstance that he knows he cannot fully control. But also probably his control tendencies are keeping things a little bit more on rails than anyone else would. Yeah, because, and Ryan Holt says this too,

that Marty would like push past dick jokes. Like when Tony Scott is making Beverly Hills Cop 2 and Eddie does a dick joke, Tony Scott loves the dick joke, the dick joke stays in. Marty pushed Eddie past dick jokes, like to do like, let's get more charactery with it, probably, right?

Like that's why the movies feel different. Yeah yeah i like Beverly Hills Cop 2 but it's a broad movie this is a less broad movie i compare Beverly Hills Cop 1 and 2 a little bit like bad boys 1 and 2 although it's both made by Michael Bay but you got like somehow the first one is like the restraints you know more classic Michael Bay like we don't go too crazy. And then Bad Boys 2 just goes off the rails. Extra, extra, extra large. Yeah, yeah. Bad Boys 2 is one of the most...

Yes, vulgar, crazy. I love Bad Boys 2 to be clear, but it is so over the top. It's amazing. Yeah, and you kind of have that with Beverlyvelail Scope too, which I love both of them. But Martin Bresta is really like this, when you watch a movie, it's very efficient. The first Bevelail Scope, it comes in movie shot in 1984. So it comes still from that classic way of filmmaking, where a lot of things are in one shot, you know, because that's what they used to do.

Obviously also with the 35 millimeter stock they use that you cannot, you know, digitally you can do whatever, but there you had to be efficient. This is the take and you see how well the blocking is of the characters and the actors and how they move. And that's why it's like, it's a clean and lean and mean movie, the first one. And that's pretty amazing. That's where you really see how talented the director Martin Brest is.

I also think as we were sort of saying earlier, a lot of action comedies, if the character is funny, you don't believe them within the real stakes of the movie. And if you believe them within the stakes, they're not funny. It's hard to hit the midpoint. How do we make this guy seem like a professional? Right, and that he's funny. He's funny to the audience.

And that in the world of the movie, people are reacting to him appropriately. If he's making a joke. Well, the fact that Axel's biggest skill is that he can talk his way into places is funny, but you're also like, that's a competency. He's good at that. That's his skill.

You set up so well at the beginning with him and the chief in Detroit, his sergeant, who he's trying to talk his way out of situations like that. His sergeant's like, I'm so fucking tired of the Axel Foley thing. I'm getting the Axel Foley thing every goddamn day. I get it, your cute little jokes. And like one of the biggest laughs in the movie for me is when he's yelling at him about like the truck and this and all of that and you cause this much damage.

And he goes, that's your side of the story. And he goes, well then what's your side of the story, Foley? And Eddie takes like a ten second pause and then goes, let's your side of the story. And he goes, well then what's your side of the story Foley? And Eddie takes like a 10 second pause and then goes, let's hear your side first, I wanna hear. Yeah, that's so good, yeah. He's such a good listener in this movie, which is a thing that often is not the case with major comedy stars, where they're just like,

I got a score in every scene, I gotta keep the movie afloat. Like Eddie really listens to what everyone says, which I think is the key to believing that he's actually a detective. You know, the deal with Gil Hill, right? The guy who plays the boss. No, he's a real cop. He was in law enforcement his whole life.

The only movies he ever made are Beverly Hills, Cop 1, 2 and 3. Wow. And then he ran for mayor of Detroit in 2001 and almost won like lost to Kwame Kilpatrick who turned out to be a massively corrupt mayor who went to prison But like that's why that guy that guy is so serious Yes And like really does feel like he wants to be rid of Eddie Murphy like he is not just the Stereotype chief who's like all right your pain in my ass. I mean, what you guys did with Joey Pants in Bad Boys 3.

Can we talk about Joey Pants for a second? That is... He's a serious guy and he's funny, he's a great actor, he's an incredibly warm, comedic actor, but that feels like a real person. David and I are both obsessed with that performance. Yeah, Joey Pants, legend. He is a legend.

The King, I walked out of that movie, I texted David and I said, this is exactly who I want to age into as an actor. My dream is I could just someday do what Joey Pants does in Bad Boys 3. Yeah. Joey Pants is, when we talked to him recently, we said, Joey, you know, you work with Steven Spielberg and Chris Nolan and the Washaresky siblings. And now with us, isn't that like devolution like

Look how your career turned into now with two punks like us What did he say no no actually he didn't answer He talked about some stories about the goonies and I was like, all right agrees But he's a guy like He talked about some stories about the goonies and I was like, all right, he agrees. I see that. But he's a guy like midnight run, running scared. Yeah. Certainly his work in the bad boys movies where it's like, he can be consistently incredibly funny and play the stakes of every scene. He's never selling out the story for a joke.

No, that's also what's so good about just, you know, Martin Bress work as a director with you, if you, you know, Midnight Run and, and, and, um, and Bevelius Cop and also, you know, the going in style, where there's a good balance between going, between comedy and seriousness. And that is a difficult balance to have. There's not a lot of, like nowadays,

it seems to be harder and harder to have like sometimes a dramatic scene or a serious scene and then having a comedic scene. It's like really one way or the other. And not a lot of actors are capable of doing that. Like Joey Pansy is perfectly in that. He can be so funny. And then there's something serious or Will and Martin or Eddie, for that matter. And that's that tone that that's really specific to, to what Don, Don

Simpson and Jerry and Martin Brist, like, you know, for us, that's a blueprint for all the movies that, that came after that. This movie basically starts like a more conventional action comedy. I mean, you have like Eddie undercover, you later find out he was not approved to go undercover. He did this of his own choice. Right. Pretending to be a drug dealer in the back of this truck. And it like starts out, he's in character doing like basically doing Rudy Valentine. Yeah. Like mile a minute, fast talking, wheeler dealer guy in a bus that goes wrong. And this truck is plowing through Detroit and causing

all this damage and it's like the classic Bruckheimer Simpson bombast and then you get to the fucking precinct and it's like you're in a real world now. This guy's off the clock. Right. It's Billy Ray Valentine. I was like Rudy Valentine. I'm sorry, Billy Ray Valentine. Yeah.

Or his 48 hours character or whatever. Right. But yes, he is he is being Eddie Murphy as a cop in Detroit, and everyone in Detroit is sick of it. But he's not even, like, basically fired, and he's not even totally in trouble until James Russo gets killed. Right. And that's when it's like, you know what, get out of here.

James Russo is so good in this. This feels like the big Martin Brest decision. Best friend. Of like, really spend like eight minutes with the two of them right let them actually Establish at their buddies before it's just like oh my my friends dad Yeah, don't just have it be like this scene exists for exposition later Really the purpose of the scene is chemistry is like establishing a sense of history and intimacy So that the rest of the movie you understand where he's coming from because he's never going to in the script have a scene where

he like breaks down crying and says like they killed my friend I have to solve this case. It all is kind of just under the hood with him and there's the moment where they're at the bar and like this relationship there's so much you learn about him without it having to be stated of like these two guys grew up together as children and were probably committing low level crimes together. Right. And then Axel went straight and he did not. And Axel has maintained this relationship with his childhood best friend who is like

a very low level, I wouldn't even say criminal, but like a guy who exists in sort of the back alleys of the world. Is constantly getting caught up in like low level schemes or being like, you know, muscles for things. And then there's the scene in the bar in like the billiards hall where they tell the story about James Russo getting busted for the first time when they sent him to state school. And Axel says, I never understood why didn't you rat me out? And James Russo goes, you don't know? And there's like a long pause between the two of them.

And then he goes, cause I love you, man. But it feels like the subtext of the scene is, he's like, they would have gone harder on you than they did on me. Yeah. Right? And it's not stated directly. It's unspoken, but it's right there. And it sort of feels like it's subtextually part of why Axel became a cop.

Where it's like him running the exact same level of shit as James Russo would have ended with him in jail or dead much sooner. Because of the society we live in. He kind of had to go straight. Yeah, yeah. It's like he saved his life, basically. Yeah, yes. That's why this is also so important for the character to find out who killed him and catch

bad guys, basically. Exactly. And the fact that he doesn't even say it, but you get the sense that Axel kind of processes it for the first time, and instead it's just, I love you. And then like three minutes later, he is just so unceremoniously knocked out by Jonathan Banks. Great Jonathan Banks. Great Jonathan Banks with hair, with hair, with hair, black hair, holding on for dear life. Michael Champion as Zach as the other guy. Right. Or something like that.

Zach and no, no, Banks is Zach. Sweet scene of like Foley bringing back his best friend drunk at his door. And then all of a sudden they basically knock, knock him out, out of frame. He just falls out of frame. Yeah. This horrifying scene plays out. They shoot this guy point blank. And the next thing you know, he's like in the back of the ambulance, seeing the crime.

His Sergeant comes in. He's like, I know what you're fucking thinking. Don't turn this into your case. Right. The one thing he heard was that what's James Roussos character's name? Uh, Mikey. That he had been working in Beverly Hills as a security guard at this art gallery and Axel just says like I'm going on vacation

It's my break. I'm in Beverly Hills and then you're straight in I mean we're like 15 20 minutes into the movie now Yeah, something like that 20 minutes, 25 I think. That's sufficient. It's sufficient. And he just, like, hits the fucking ground running, right? I mean, he basically, he goes straight to the art gallery? Yeah, no, it's really good how much breast lingers, like you say, in the early part of the movie, in Detroit, the great opening credits, where it's just, like, street scenes and people walking around, the friendship, stuff like that. Yeah. Yeah. Paul Reiser is there.

That's true. And then it's like the cop, you know, the boss being like, hey, don't you do it anymore. If you're being like, I'm going to do it. We're in Beverly Hills and he's marching right into a hotel being like, Hey, I'm a writer from Rolling Stone. But it's immediately like such a change in color palette. Like breast is so good at how he establishes the look of Detroit versus Beverly Hills cop. So the moment you cut to like the palm trees whirling by outside the car window, it feels like an absolute culture shock.

I still know very little about Beverly Hills. Everything I know about Beverly Hills is from movies. I've been there like once in my life, like for an afternoon or something. I feel like this movie is pretty accurate right? It is pretty much still like that. 40 years later exactly like that. Oh yeah yeah absolutely absolutely I think you know when when we saw the trailer of Beverly Hills Cop 4 now directed by Mark Malloy we we saw it and it's like, it's like nothing has changed. It still has the same vibe. Like if you watch that trailer, you watch the first movie and you'll just drive around Beverly Hills. It is that.

It never changed, which is pretty amazing, actually. I guess, yeah. He really captured what Beverly Hills is. You saw it only in the movies, but if you see it in real life, it's just the same. It's as if you're walking into the movie, basically. Yeah. You're walking Beverly Hills.

Yeah, it does. Right. Real Beverly Hills feels like a Disney World recreation of the location from Beverly Hills Cop. Like when I was a kid, it's just a little Disney-like. It's like Epcot. It's this tiny little neighborhood. I know it's a city onto itself or whatever, but it's like really just like this little

neighborhood. Right. It's like the little neighborhood. I know it's a city onto itself or whatever, but it's really just this little neighborhood. Right, it's like the little Mexico in Epcot. But when I was a kid, I didn't get why it was crazy that there was a Beverly Hills cop. I didn't either. I knew that it was crazy or it was fun that Eddie Murphy was a cop. And I guess I knew he was a fish out of water.

I remember my father having to explain to me at some age. Obviously later, there's a Beverly Hills ninja, he's a kung-fu. Anytime I didn't get a joke in anything, I would ask my father to to explain to me at some age. Obviously later, there's the Beverly Hills ninja. He's a kung-fu. Right. Anytime I didn't get a joke in anything, I would ask my father to completely unpack it for me. Whether it was like a specific joke or what is this even riffing on?

And I remember him having to explain to me, like, there are stereotypes about what people from certain cities are like. Like I didn't understand, like, well, what, so he's from one city and he goes to a different city. And he's like, no, at Beverly Hills, they're really snooty. And I was like, everyone in Beverly Hills. They're snooty and They're pretentious superficial right and Like how else to describe they're like kind of like they've got this kind of cutting-edge fashionista vibe

That is kind of annoying. I guess like They're very very, I would say. And they are a little white. That's a good point. A little bit, a tiny bit. Yeah, and I just also see, when I see Baviels, it's like, it's money. You've got like this cadre of like Ronnie Cox,

who obviously is just like an incredible suit that you just hate the guy's face the second you see it. Yeah. Even though he's not as bad in this. like, no, this starts to create the model that Verhoeven riffs on of like, can we crank you up to twenty seven? John Ashton is like like the take no guff, like personality free, like jerk. And then Reinhold is kind of like the good boy. Yes. You're kind of like, well, he seems like a sweetie pie, but he's also like

he's like a vanilla sandwich. He's like nothing. Right. You don't you don't detect a lot of guts to judge Reinhold. But the scene in this movie that feels so ahead of its time is when Eddie gets thrown out the window. They arrest him. They bring him to the precinct. They realize that he's a cop and then Ronnie Cox comes in and starts doing basically the like HR speech. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cox comes in and starts doing basically the like HR speech. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Would you like to press Trump?

After John Ashton has punched him in the stomach. Right, and you're just watching like Axel in real time, watch this conversation play out so confused. He doesn't talk for like a minute. Cops don't report each other for like fighting in the office, like where I'm from. Like what are you talking about? And he's not even stating that as like, this is a moral code that cops don't turn each other for like fighting in the office, like where I'm from. Like, what are you talking about? And he's not even stating that as like, this is a moral code that cops don't turn on other

cops. He's just like, what are you, what are you saying? My chief constantly slaps me. Everyone's yelling at each other. You start with the hotel. Yeah. Which is the beginning of like, another one of these things that I, it gets intensified as the Beverly Hills cop movies go on, but like him sort of affecting characters, a low level Fletch, if you will.

Yeah, it's fudgy. That's a good point. Actually it is. It's like Chevy chase. But like I said, it's a skill that feels actually relevant to his job. Yes. It's not like, Oh, Eddie Murphy, the actor is here now to Yeah. To play a new character for us for two minutes and it'll be funny. It's like, no, this guy can talk himself like into a situation I could not do. Also, he knows how to read people so fast. He understands what sort of persona to apply to get through that specific person. He's sort of like Taylor making the improv exercises to the end objective and who's in the environment and everything. But another great like silent Eddie reaction moment is when he's sort of, I have a reservation, your reservation's not on file, Rolling Stone,

he starts throwing out the thing. Clearly this is a race issue. And then the manager comes in who's also a lot of Robocop actors used in this movie or I guess Robocop uses a lot of these actors. This guy is the hostage negotiator from Robocop, the manager of the hotel. Yeah. Who's the guy promising the car with really shitty mileage. Right. Right. Right. And he goes like, I'm so sorry, sir, we will give you one of our luxury suites for the

price of the regular hotel room. And Axel's like so happy that he pulled this off. And he goes, great, how much? He goes, only $232 a night. Right, right. Which for that time, which is a lot of fucking money. Right. Yeah. And you see him in real time go like, I can't afford this.

Right. But I've talked myself into it. I'm just going to say yes and figure it out. Right. It makes the character iconic and very smart, you know. So that's why you remember Beverly Hills Cop. It's not just, you know, a generic good cop. It's that what makes him so specific and what makes it so Eddie Murphy specific.

Yeah. And like he cares, right? Like there's a feeling of this guy believes in some sort of moral right. Sure. On a low level way. Yeah, you mean? Yeah, Axel. Sure. Yeah. Right. Like it's not like a quest for vengeance. There there's a version of this movie. It's probably a Stallone version of this movie of like you killed my best friend. Everyone's going to pay. Yeah, right. Right. And he's just mowing people down. It's your classic just sort of like revenge-o-matic thing. This is like, he hates that his friend is dead,

but he also hates this type of person who moves through the world with impunity and a sense of superiority. I love how straightforward the villain is. Steven Berkoff, to be clear. You know, like, right, where it's just like, he's just like, I don't have to worry about these people. Like, I'm rich, I can buy my to worry about these people. Like I'm rich.

I can buy my way out of the situation. That's it. This is all just like game, a game for me. Right. Yeah. Victor Maitland. Victor Maitland. Victor Maitland.

Great name. Sitting there behind the desk. Yeah. Will, Will Smith would always like during the last bad boys movie, talk about that. We need a bad guy like Victor Maitland. Really? Really? That is interesting.

Straight forward, blue eyed, just bats. Who's the villain in the new movie? It's Eric Dane. Oh yeah. Eric Dane. It's like exactly the same. Will worked a lot on the script and he really designs the bad guy as a Victor Maitland bad guy. So when you know, powerful and gets away with everything, is really on a high level and is so serious and dark and not comedic at all.

And I think if you're a fan of Beverly Sculpt One and Victor Maitland, you recognize the... It's maybe the son of Victor Mabel. Who knows? You know, if there's maybe one day we'll do a shared universe movies called the Brookheimer verse and we'll bring Axel Foley together with Mike and Marcus. I mean, there's Troy. Yeah, Cameron Poe. Yeah, right. Get them all in there. Multiple cages.

Right. Griffin, how's your stock drawer looking? Unbelievable. You know why? Why? Yeah, right. Griffin, how's your stock drawer looking? Unbelievable, you know why? Why? Filled to the brim with bombasts! Well maybe if you're not like Griffin, it's time for a spring cleaning and refresh. Not like Griffin, Griffin doesn't need to spring clean at all.

No, I'm sort of the gallant in this situation. You the listener are the goofus who needs to follow my example. Ben, you know from goofus and Gallant, Ben looked at me confused. We all know from Goofus and Gallant. We all know from Goofus and Gallant, right? Honestly, no, like I don't think he knows what Goofus and Gallant are. From Highlights magazine, Goofus and Gallant. Goofus does things wrong and Gallant does things right.

Talk about that damn dentist magazine. Exactly. Yeah. And often, Ben, I'm the goofus of the world. Everyone laughing and pointing and doing it. Gallant does things right. Talk about that damn dentist magazine. Exactly. Yeah. And often Ben, I'm the goofiest of the world. Everyone laughing and pointing and doing it saying, don't do what Griffin does. He's doing it all wrong. But when you crack open the old Griffey Noom sock drawer for that brief moment, I'm a gallant because it is overflowing with bombas and everyone should follow my lead.

Here's the thing with bombas, David, and I learned this the hard way. And I'm wearing them right now. I'm wiggling my toesies in them. We're now doing like war and peace level bombas ad here. Once you try bombas, you'll never look at socks the same way again. They're got socks! They're obsessed with the details, David! Of course! And they have a great mission. They donate them. Honeycomb Arch Support, who else is going to give you that?

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This guy also like his heartbeat never Yeah, it's like this guy is barging in being like hey my friend was killing He's like, oh, I'm so sorry to hear that like that's such bad news But he nothing I can do for you on that right? Yeah He's got that sort of like absurd like Epstein level like I will buy myself out of every situation. There is nothing you can threaten me with that's going to fucking do anything that's going to move the needle an inch.

It's like I feel now I'm trying to remember the plot of the later Beverly Hills cops because there's no mystery to this movie. We know who did it. We watched the murder happen. Right. We know who did it. We watch the murder happen, right? It's just about like can axle like break through these structures to get what needs to happen The film is bureaucracy bureaucracy racism rich people you privilege shit like that, right? You know, just like society and he get the Beverly Hills cops to pay attention to him and yeah accept him Can he get you know these villains to reveal themselves and get taken down?

Like, that's it, really, right? Because he finds the coffee grounds early and everyone's like coffee grounds. Who gives a shit? It's coffee. And he's just like, you don't have to think coffee is used to disguise drugs. Right. Like he doesn't have anything he can throw at him, but he knows he's right. Jenny in the in the film, the female lead who is sort of childhood friends with Axel and Mikey, it is one of these fascinating things where like...

Is it Ayo Backer? Who didn't do much after this. I think it's very good in this movie. She's very charming. Yeah. But she's talked about like she was supposed to be the love interest in the movie, cast against Stallone. Then when Eddie comes in instead,

they're immediately like, well, the two of them can't end up together romantically because the audience will get upset. Right. Just like absolute high level Hollywood racism. That does create this interesting effect of like, if only for bad reasons starting out, it is fascinating that this is one of the only movies of its ilk,

in which there is no romantic relationship, there's just a man and a woman who are friends. That's cool. It is cool. That's actually good. It's actually very modern nowadays, it's actually very hard not to create that. Exactly. That's the insane thing. You really feel their friendship. And the friendship that she has with the guy who got killed. Yeah, because they grew up together, so they're all concerned by that.

But it's this weird, it's like another happy accident thing with this movie of like you only get that result because of bigotry and racial fear. But the end result of it, as you said, does feel weirdly modern even still. And it like changes the whole tenor of like, types of scenes you don't see in a movie like this, which is just people playing old friends who are familiar with each other. Yeah. And without the tension of like, are they going to kiss? Yeah, it still feels fresh.

That's why it still feels so fresh when you see it today, the today. It's my favorite performance moment, Eddie has in the entire film, is when Axel comes in and says like, so I saw Mikey the other day. And she makes some comment like, oh no, what kind of trouble is he up to now? Right. And they cut back to Axel and he has this long response time where he debates whether or not to deliver it as a joke or not. Right. Right. There's like the jokey version of like a real trouble.

He's dead. You know, like turning into some kind of punchline, which this type of character in a movie often would. And you see him weigh it and then go like he died. Like this is not a time to joke. Yep. This this movie has a lot of moments where they don't go for the easy joke. And you're still laughing and you still like it because you love these characters. We're making it sound like an understated art movie.

It is still a broad comedy about it. Eddie Murphy is a cop. It is, but compared to what movies today or when you think about action comedy, it is much more artistic than, than, you more artistic than you would remember. Because the series and dramatic scenes are real and are earnest and are very subtle, you would say. So it's quite a sophisticated movie if you watch it today. And that's not the same as just a brainless, you know, cash grab blockbuster where everything is a bit too artificial, you know? It feels authentic. That's what made that movie also, I think, so successful back in the day.

There's a real center to the guy, and it makes it all the funnier when he does shit like the fucking bananas in the tailpipe. Which like, when I was nine and seeing this for the first time, that I got, I was like, well this guy rules. Yeah, with the shrimp salad sandwich. Did this movie invent the banana in the tailpipe? Like, this is entirely Beverly Hills Copper, was that some kind of a prank that existed? And then he's just like, you know what,

I'm gonna do classic banana in the tailpipe. Honestly, I never saw that. No, I only saw it from the movie. Yeah, yeah, I never I never saw that. And also, I wonder if people after that movie, you know, did that. If there was an epidemic. It probably was. Yeah, people definitely put bananas in tailpipes.

It's another great moment where he gets the bananas from Damon Waynes. Yeah, yeah, short scene. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Short scene. Yeah, very short. Also one shot. Yes, yes. But at a time where like there were not a lot of black stars in Hollywood, Eddie, especially with the movies coming after this, was famous for like pulling guys from the stand-up circuit. Yeah, yeah.

Who can I get into like Coming to America or Golden Child or whatever, right? Yeah, and you got that short Damon Wayne scene where he just wants the bananas for the tailpipe And he asked how much and Damon Wayne says that they're part of like a $25 fruit plate With like three pieces and four plums and whatever and then Eddie just sort of silently gives him the take Without even pushing back or saying anything and Damon Wayne's is kind of like,'s three bananas don't say anything I'm with you this is an absurd product neither of us belong in Beverly Hills you know but right after that is this trip club scene like what is it how does that how does that Rosewood and Taggart are like doing the stakeout outside the hotel which he sends him the food. That's the dynamic of like Ashton always being like, this guy's fucking with us.

And Reinhold always being like, it's a good burger. Right. He's a good guy, the naive good guy, which we love. We love that. Even when he's being fucked with and even when Ashton's telling him to keep his head on a swivel, he's like, yeah, but we're getting a free burger out of it It's always is a sunny boy. You always see something positive. Yes every situation, which is a strength. It's a superpower right, and you get this great antagonism of like

He's he's now learned the difference of the Beverly Hills cop culture How strictly by the book these guys are gonna operate under Ronnie Cox, and how much these guys are gonna be on his case trying to stop him from solving it himself. And he starts this like playful antagonism with them that slowly becomes an actual friendship. Yeah, it goes from the stakeout to the strip club basically.

And the strip club is kind of where they start to bond. I mean, obviously one of the most iconic gifts ever, Eddie doing the AOK sign. What I also love about that scene is that when, you know, he's joking around and trying to make friends with them, but then all of a sudden there is really threat and you see how Eddie changes and assesses the situation and it becomes real. So that again, it makes it so grounded. I remember Eddie Murphy's inside the Actors Studio,

which is incredibly good. And unlike a lot of comedians who would like get movie roles in this era, especially someone who's fucking 23 years old, who's doing their first movie when they're 21, if you come from a comedy background, you show up and all you're thinking about is, I just want to score. I want to be as funny as I can in every scene.

And Eddie was always, like, clearly a student of movies. Obsessively watched movies and TV as a kid, was obsessed with actors. Like, processed the story weight of what he needed to convey in every scene and not just being funny. And inside the Actors Studio, he's talking about how obsessively he studied, like, Charles Lawton's Hunchback of Notre Dame when he was a kid.

Right. Like, his influences being so varied. But the thing he said that I always remember whenever I rewatch Beverly Hills Cop, is he said, any time I'm holding a gun in Beverly Hills Cop, I'm doing Bruce Lee. Hmm. And it wasn't Bruce Lee during, like, the fights. It's Bruce Lee when he enters a room and he's trying to suss out the level of danger, right? Right, and it's yes, it's what you just said of like in that scene. He's joking around

He's having fun. And then there's a moment where he really locks in and It's like are we on the same page? Are you giving me real information? You know, like the bit is dropped Yes Are you giving me real information? You know, like the bit is dropped Yes Yeah, all of a sudden situation is real and yeah, she just got real Just so shows him also what a good copy Is credible, you know, like when he when he's with a gun like super serious focused He feels dangerous and and that's like an amazing switch to do, you know, between, between, yeah, you know, he's a funny guy, it's fun to watch him, but then he became, he becomes an

action action hero, he becomes a really serious, you know, dangerous guy for the bad guys. What's wild, I mean, the real like magic act is he, he reads as dangerous without ever feeling like he's trying to play tough. Right. Right. Yeah. Which I think you get that a lot with action comedy, is if the guy's background is in comedy first.

Is it's like, well, let me add like 80 pounds of muscle. Let me flex. Let me clench my jaw. You know? Like I got to get more serious in kind of a cool guy way. Versus like what becomes dangerous about him is like his focus. Yes, the way he holds the gun, you know, that's like it became like an you see that in the trailer of the last Bevel of Skull, that's maybe even the first shot of him, like the way he holds the gun is like,

okay, it's dangerous, it's also super cool, but it feels real. Seeing the trailer for the fourth one, I was like, when the trailer dropped, I'm like gripping onto my armrest being like, is Eddie going to get it right? Like, is he going to remember the specifics of Axel versus his other characters? And it is like some of the stuff, the body language and that, the way he looks at people, the way he listens. And even when he's motor mouthing, it's like at a sort of quieter volume. He never, like 48 Hours is a bigger, broader performance than this, even though it's before.

He's boisterous. Yeah. And Trading Places is huge. Yeah, Trading Places is huge. That's a big movie in every way. Yes. This is probably his best movie star performance, I would say.

It is the one that like quantifies everything. Now I'm wondering if that's a hot take, but I do think it's true. Like obviously I love a lot of other Eddie performances, but they're, you know, bigger comic performance. Like this, yeah, this is probably the definitive Eddie Murphy star performance, right? Yes. Yeah.

Now I'm like, am I crazy? No, I'm not crazy. He's coming off of too big. I would say so,? No, I'm not crazy. He's coming off of two big... I would say so. I would agree with that. He's coming off of... Sorry, go. It's the movie that... Oh, sorry. It's just like... Harrison Ford with Indiana Jones.

Raiders of the Lost Ark. Those are one of the iconic characters and it wasn't with that first movie. So I think that makes sense. He's coming off of two big hit movies where he gives incredible performances. But this is the one that like solidifies him in history. This is the one that makes him the biggest star for the rest of the 80s, basically. And this is the one where it's like he's he's put all the pieces together

in a movie that's really just about him. And it's also it's also a character that is connected to to a music. And you don't have that a lot, you know? So that's the iconic track. To have your own theme. And a theme this recognizable. And a theme that basically any child can do on a keyboard, like, because it's just... You can actually figure it out by yourself. It's got that thing like the Jaws theme, where its simplicity is part of its power. But then when it goes into the...

Right, well, then right, it gets cool. I love it. I love those 80s sounds. Harold Fultemeier, guys. He's the main... Yeah, he is the king. That's, yeah, I mean... It's so funny. It's like, you know, it's a real scene.

And then you have that 80s dance music. And you're like, oh yeah. It gives you goosebumps. It's something, you know, chemical in your brain that happens when you see that. So that, yeah, that's why, you know, you don't have a lot of characters that are connected with music and one actor. Yeah, and it's also something typical for 80s and 90s movies. You don't have that really anymore. We don't. We don't have enough themes. We need more themes. No, and it's like in the way that when you hear like hearing Danny Elfman's

Batman theme for the first time, I invoke this a lot, but where I'm just like yeah that's what Batman sounds like musically. This is the perfect Axel Foley theme because it's both like a little bit intense and cool and a little bit goofy and funny. Right. It has both sides of him in it. Yeah. So on that note, growing up as a kid, you had Axel Foley with the music, and then you had Michael Keaton with the Batman team. Yeah. And let's take a certain point in our careers.

It was a very difficult choice to make whether we would do Axel Foley. Oh, yeah. Or Michael Keaton as Batman. Difficult choice to make whether we would do Axel Foley or Batgirl. Or Michael Keaton as Batman. Eventually we didn't do none of them. We didn't do any of them. We did one of them. Michael is all over Batgirl, right? I know we'll never see it, I guess, but he's the big supporting sort of mentor in it, right?

Yeah, he was there and he was, you know, he was like sort of mentor. And obviously we had, you know, in the cut of, in a cut of the movie that nobody's going to see, we had the Danny Elfman score theme at that moment. Yeah. Which was pretty dope. So we were shooting that I felt back like a five-year-old kid. But yeah, it is what it is. It is what it is.

I guess it's, yeah, it's so weird that, right, like, whatever. I mean, you guys, I'm sure have discussed it to death. Just that there's a movie out there, like, that I could just go steal, like, you know, and I'd have to, like, break into a vault to watch it. Well, maybe one day we'll make a heist movie out of that, you know, after Bad Boy's Ride or Die, just one big heist movie about that story.

You just put some code into a streaming service and then it's there. Exactly. But, uh, yeah, back to, uh, the real stuff. The strip club. Yes. Yeah. They're starting to bond Ashton like, and they play plays it perfectly. Breast.

Yes. This sort of slow admiration. Yeah. They're not like like this guy's actually great and we're on board with them entirely. But they are kind of like suddenly sticking up for him with Ronnie Cox a little bit.

Right. Like they're kind of like, you know, you might have seen I might have an idea of what to do here. And and Rosewood gets there faster than Taggart does. Yes. Rosewood being Reinhold, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Probably because he is a little more open. Yeah, yeah, exactly. A bit younger, they feel like the same generation, even though I think that Taggart, I don't know what age he was during the, I think he's our age, or I think maybe we're even older than him. For some reason it looks like Taggart, no, no, I think he's like, no, no, I think Taggart was beginning 30. Oh, really? Yeah, yeah, in the 80s everybody looks like dagger. No, no, I think he's like, no, I think I think that was beginning 30.

Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah. In the 80s, everybody looked. Yeah. I was going to say, is one of those actors who has looked 40 his entire career? I think he is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like astonishingly. Right. I think he's about 35 years old in this movie. That seems great.

Yeah. Yeah. He was born in 1940. Yeah. Yeah. He would have been like 36. Yeah. 30. Yeah. That's he seems like 55. Yeah, 30. Yeah, that's I mean we all do respect actor. No, he's a great actor Ryan holds like in his mid 20s Ryan holds like kind of 25 26 You look at John action in the in the Beverly Hills cop 4 trailer and he basically looks the same in the Beverly Hills Cop Four trailer, and he basically looks the same.

Like the flip side of this is when he was 20, he looked 45, but now he's 75 and he looks 45. I mean, God bless that he's in it. He's still kicking, John Ashton, 76 years old, yeah. All right, so yeah, then they, right. They find the coffee grounds, right? He sneaks into the warehouse. Then there's the sort of country club scene, right?

Is that like the fight with Jonathan Banks? We didn't talk about Bronson Pinchot. We didn't talk about Bronson Pinchot. That, the one time the movie is kind of like, can we have paused for two minutes just to be funny? Like, you know, like, can we just actually, like, have a little comic scene play out? Which Pinchot had, like, a comedy background,

but was hired basically as a dramatic actor to play the straight version of this character. Right. And I thought he was going to do the straight version. My wife was immediately like, this is funny. And I was like, this is so funny. You fucking made a guy's career, man. He got multiple sitcoms off of this. And then also becomes the thing where like in Beverly Hills, cop two, they're like, we're proud to present Gilbert Godfrey in the Bronson Pinshow position. Right, right. They start to build these movies with like, and there's the one scene where he's going

to have the electric back and forth with the new comedy guy. And then he's back in three, right? They're like, don't worry, sir, just back. He's back in two, is he not? Doesn't he give him the guns in two? Doesn't he become an arms dealer? I think that's three. No, no, that's in three.

That's in three. That's for sure. Yeah, that that doesn't three. Yeah three. Okay. That's for sure Yeah, there's where the gun with the microwave It's the whole thing where two has the sensibility to be like, yeah No, we can kind of go for the same vibe with new people and three is like let's just get Beverly Hills cop one again Oh my god, like, you know, can we please do that? The thing in that scene is you're just like well, I'm used to what this is gonna be He's gonna walk in this snooty art gallery guy is going to dismiss him

and write him off and give him the business. What does he offer lemon with the cappuccino? I think so. That sounds so gross. Is that a thing? Yes. But, but the get the fuck out. I will not.

It's just the moment of like Axel's calling like bullshit on this entire industry and Serge kind of agrees with him. Yeah. You know where he's like, I'm glad someone else recognizes this is ridiculous, even though he's part of the ridiculous world. But no, that seems very funny. I didn't grow up with Perfect Strangers. Like, I only know Bronson Pinchot from this. Uh, he had an ABC sitcom called Mee-Go where he was an alien who was friends with Jonathan Lipnicki. Yeah, haven't seen that one either. Might surprise you to hear that I loved Mee-Go.

Sounds like this thing aired six episodes, Kurt. I was tuned in for all six. Yeah, he had a great part in True Romance. Yeah, that's right. He is a true writer. He's great in for all six. Yeah, you had a great party now true. Romance. Yeah, that's right. He is a true Romance, he's really good in fucking Risky business. He's an air ski business. Yeah. He was a good energy guy Like, you know, yeah give you give you cool like crazy energy for a senior to judge Reinhold speaking of a guy who basically for like five or six years was at the absolute center of pop culture

I mean, I love that man. I do too. He's just so lovable. Yes. There's few actors, especially in his eighties parts, that you're just, you're just immediately on board with Judge Reinhold always. He's such a sweetie pie. Even though we didn't make, um, Beaverdoll's Cop 4, but we were attached to

it and working on the script, our one big contribution to a change in that script was putting Judge Reinhold back in. He wasn't in it. He got to have him. They used to be taggered. They used to be taggered and just another police officer. And we thought, you got to have both. You got to have both.

So we were very happy and proud that at least in this movie we got the two cops to get. Well done, guys. Thank you. But you have like, Bully try to get Maitland. Yeah. And basically be told like, you can't stop this guy. Like this guy's basically city hall. He's unflappable.

He's covered his tracks too well. Yeah, you've got the looming thing of the chief, Stephen Elliott, where like it's like clear that he's the sort of the bulwark. He's the like, no, no, no, you've got the looming thing of the chief, Stephen Elliott, where like it's like clear that he's the sort of the bulwark. He's the like, no, no, no, you stop this, whatever you're doing. And for multiple scenes, you've just had him in the deep background in his office with the door closed. You finally only towards the end have the scene where he walks out and is like,

what the fuck is going on in this movie? Like basically just stops the whole film and goes like like how have we been letting this guy run the story I mean for sure okay what happens which goes into the final shootout the man yeah exactly then it's right then it's Jenny getting kidnapped basically yes and it's time for the shootout it's a fast movie it's not like a long movie at all. It doesn't feel like it outstays its welcome at any point. Yeah, it's really flowmatic.

It does flow. It doesn't have some bullshit kind of refusal of the call moment where Murphy... Like, which you could see that getting sort of crowbarred in of like, Axel goes back to Detroit, he gives up, like, he's not going to figure it out. I don't know, something like that, you know? Yeah. Yeah, we hate those moments. So annoying, because you're like, the reluctant hero.

It's one of these weird, like myths where like, I feel like studio execs feel like you need it in a movie, and it's like, no audience wants these scenes. They're the scenes that slow down the parts you want to get to. Yeah, yeah. Typical, like convincing, or convincing the other guys to help. Like, no, I'm not going to do it.

Go on. Yeah. And usually it takes 30 seconds. Okay, I'm going to do it. Just do it then. Or scenes where there is a pause and then you need to do a lot of information to explain the story. Yeah.

A lot of exposition. Yeah. Somehow the exposition flows pretty good in it because it's always in a conflict scene, so you don't realize because you know, you got, you got Ronnie Cox and then the other officers asking, you know, Axel Foley, why they should follow him. And he tries to convince them by giving information about that. So that's a very smart way to hide the exposition moments. But also his character is on a straight line the entire movie. He is unwavering, right? He is just like, I gotta get to the bottom of this. I gotta find out who fucking killed my friend and make

someone pay for this. There has to be accountability. You never have the scene where he unpacks it, where he explains it. It is part of what is, like, makes Eddie so deniable in this film that elevates him to, like, a different tier of movie star. Is this movie... The exposition scenes are purely the exposition of the case, of the crimes, which are also not over-explained.

You basically just get the raw details, and you never have this guy, like, open up emotionally. But you understand exactly what he's thinking in every scene. You understand what's driving him. You know, you go from his chief saying, like, don't go to Beverly Hills. Don't fucking do the case. Yeah, this is your too personal.

I mean, it's a worthy note from the chief, to be clear. He's right, like, do not investigate your friend's murder. Right. And then he just does it. Yes. Doing it. There's no scene where he looks in a mirror and he goes like, am I crazy? Should I stop? Right. Yeah. Now, he's going to get these guys. The shootout is very good, too. It's very clean and simple. Yeah. Like, I feel like Brest at that point doesn't have like a ton of experience

with like a big set piece. No. And he seems just like completely on top of it. Yeah. Right? Like you totally know what's going on. It is exciting, but it's never like messy or over the top. I don't know. And you're getting to like the formation of the Bruckheimer Simpson house style of like,

let's blow up the world's nicest mansion. Let's take the world's most expensive objects and put bullets through them. Yeah, so like when you guys are working with Jerry, like I assume he's there always, or is he there a lot of the time? Like what is the level of Jerry that's around when you're making a Jerry Bruckheimer picture?

It depends, it depends on the shoot, because in our case, during the shoot, he was also doing another movie, which is sometimes a bigger movie than ours. During Bad Boys for Life he was doing Top Gun Maverick. So he was a lot of time over there. That's the biggie. And I think that during this one, Bad Boys Ride or Die, he was doing, he's still doing actually, F1. Oh, he had the crazy Kaczynski movie, right?

Yeah, with Brad Pitt, which is sort of the top gun on tracks. But in the editing, he's the whole time there. Yeah, I don't know. Jerry is always there. Even if he's not there, he's always there. Yeah, you always feel his presence. Jerry's on it. And they were also editing the new Bavaria Cup across the street from where we were doing Bad Boys. So we were always trying to get information, how is it?

Yeah, but as Jimmy said, nope, you don't know shit. So we had the same editors and we had the same composer. And we were the whole time asking questions, so how is the other one? And then it would come up with us with like results of test screening and say, oh, it scored a 95, which is like the highest score you could ever have. And he's like, oh, so it was like really this kind of competition we had to raise the bar to at least match the quality of that movie. So it's going to be amazing. But yeah, Jerry, you know, it's strange because obviously he loves action. He wants the movie to be big.

But every time we would pitch like something cool and some explosions or whatever, he would say, yeah, yes, yes. But it's all about the characters. So that's why he always, you know, comes back to. It is the key though. Like when we all, you know, wax poetic about like the 90s, Touchstone, Bruckheimer, Bay Run. The big crazy explosive movies, yeah, yeah, yeah. The joy of those movies that you feel like are missing from a lot of our blockbusters today are just like,

packed to the gills with character actors, all doing interesting shit. Right, right, right. Big, like, broad, but like really fun, and like you say, like good actors, like having fun doing something that's like not just a stock stereotype. And most of them, the cage movies in particular, part of the calculation is who's the last guy you would expect to be placed at the center of this story? And then they do Armageddon, which is a whole movie of like the every guy in this is going to be one of those guys.

Yeah, like it's a spaceship filled with people like that. Like that's what I love about Armageddon. I apologize if this is a sensitive question, but I have to ask you guys. Bad Boys for Life comes out. It is a humongous hit. It breaks January records. Automatically it's clear, Fourth Bad Boys has to happen.

How quickly is everyone kicking themselves for not being able to call the fourth one bad boys numeral four life? During like already during production or during the editing like we show we start to show the movie to test audience, test audience reacts really good and they're, okay, what do we do? Do we keep it? Do we change it? And then when, you know, there's like a kind of post credit kind of scene and that post credit scene, we were not sure to, it's basically the movie was already cut. Everything was done.

Yeah. And it was a discussion like, do we put it in? Because if we put it in, it means that we really believe there's going to be a fourth movie. Yeah. And it was really a last minute decision. Right. Yeah.

Before we locked it. It was also a discussion like half of the producers were for the other half were against it. So he's like, you know, just put it in and we'll see what happens. And then the movie becomes a huge success. And then we really know now we have to do this. Oh, shit. Okay. becomes a huge success and then we really know now we have to do this oh shit okay so we kind of hope now that that we can do like a star wars you know star wars changed its title to a new hope

just go back maybe we can just swap we can switch we can switch a room yeah do a switcheroo you know it's possible but i mean i know what you guys mean where it's like, you guys made a movie. You don't know that you're going to get to make another one of these or it's going to work. It was a good chunk of years after Bad Boys 2. You could see how you're like, is the idea that we're getting everyone back together for one last movie? Yeah, exactly. That's why it's full life. It's the last one.

It's cool. It's this is it. This is it. Yeah, we can kill off Joey Pant. do we need to save him for another movie? We could have gone with Bad Boys Forever, but that doesn't sound so cool. Yeah. Bad Boys Forever will be for the fifth movie, so we make it super customary. Just keep doing forms.

That's right. Just keep doing that. Completely messing with that. Throwing a part one for some reason. Yeah. On Beverly Hills Cop, we're basically, you know, we did it, we talked about Beverly Hills Cop, where we should, we're obviously,

we need to play the box office game. It's so crazy that Eddie didn't win a Golden Globe for this movie. He was nominated. He was. Obviously this film was nominated for one Oscar for screenplay. He was snubbed there.

Which is this weird example of your like, it's the difference between what is the job of a screenwriter and what do they do? And what is the final quote unquote script of the movie in the form that you watch it as an audience member? Where you're like, well, yes, the text of this movie is incredible. It's so clean. It's so sharp. It's zero fat. It's perfectly plotted. And every scene is funny and filled with character. But then you read about it and you're like that was constructed by basically everyone who touched this movie at any single point in time.

It's not like there was like a hard copy of the script that they were reading on the day that would have gotten Oscar nomination, but the end result of the movie was so undeniable. That's why they say you write the script in pre-production, production, and post-production In the editing, you rewrite and that's basically what happened. That's the real script, right. Is what you finish up with. Yeah. But he lost.

Best actor in a comedy movie, you know, at the Golden Globes to Dudley Moore for Mickey and Maude. That is... It's a crazy loss. Absurd. Especially when you consider the other nominees were Bill Murray for Ghostbusters, Steven Martin for All of Me, which is a great performance,

Robin Williams for Moscow and the Hudson, which, you know, was funny. But like... Big comic, like, legend performances losing to this forgotten movie. Two of the most iconic leading man comedy performances in history, and maybe Steve Martin's best, like, technical work. But also the cultural significance that Eddie had in that movie was, yeah, it was big. He should have, he should have won.

Yes. I also get nominated for an Oscar. I would say. He should have been nominated for an Oscar. It's like the Amadeus year. You got both those guys. You've got, it's a pretty like good Oscar year. F.

Murray Abraham, right? Jeff Bridges and Starman is nominated that year and Sam Watterson in the Killing Fields and Albert Finney in Under the Volcano. But yeah, Eddie Murphy should be in there. It was interesting. I was looking at letterbox reviews for this movie from people who seem to be maybe 20 or younger and are like, have a very confusing frame of cultural context for Eddie Murphy. Right. Where I feel like when we were growing up and we were coming of age when he was hitting his like family star peak, when the second wave of Eddie was starting with like Nutty Professor and everything, you understood the context of like, this guy used to be the edgiest, coolest comedy star in the world and now he's maybe making like broader movies for children, right? And he's still making those movies have more edge than you'd expect.

And then he goes through like the multiple rotations of like, well now he's primarily Donkey and Dreamgirls and Norbit and then he sort of pulls back for a while and then he's come back and all this sort of stuff. But like the thing that is important to relay and Beverly Hills Cop is the one that just like locks this in is like he was kind of cooler than any comedy star had ever been right and outside of just being like a big funny movie star he was also just like at the

same level of celebrity as like Madonna and Michael Jackson like anything he did was iconic yeah I mean you know well and Martin, they look up at Eddie Murphy like he's the main guy. He's the GOAT, you know, and he's the godfather of them. And it's really great to, you know, one time on the set of Bad Boys 3, we had this moment, you know, Will calls it the Black Mount Rushmore picture where it was him and Martin and Eddie Murphy and with his knives was there too and you just saw the amount of respect that Will and Martin had for him and it was just you know very touching to see. Yeah you have to yeah I mean like at that time hip-hop culture was born you know and and and he was a personification for a whole movement that was happening.

And was also now fully mainstream. Like it's not... Yeah, worldwide. Yeah, worldwide. And he was representing that. So that's... He was the one who opened the door for a lot of people. Yeah, I think that he paved the way for so many of the stars that would come after him.

So, yeah, that was... It's still an iconic guy, an iconic movie. There's the joke early in the movie. That's almost a throwaway. That's a meta joke that feels like it should destroy the reality. But when you're going through the opening montage of him in Beverly Hills, looking aghast at everything, uh, just the insane like exorbitance of the city. And he walks by two guys who are wearing head to toe red leather jumpsuits

and they're basically wearing the jumpsuit that he wears in Delirious. They're wearing Eddie Murphy jumpsuits. Well he's wearing his like letterman jacket and his like jeans and sweatshirt whatever. He's dressed like a man of the people and he like does the classic Eddie Murphy laugh at how ridiculously these guys are dressed? Right. And but yet he was the guy who a year earlier was able to wear an outfit that ridiculous with such confidence that everyone's like, I guess that's cool. Right.

When every other stand up at that point in time has basically been a dude in like a sweaty suit, like loosening his neck. I mean, obviously, the letterman jacket is like one of the most iconic pieces of costume design. Like so, so simple, so effective. Like everyone wanted one after that. Like yeah. And this movie just has a perfect button of him like gifting Rosewood and Taggart with

the bathrobes. Yeah. And then sort of revealing the charges that the Beverly Hills Police Department are going to have to pick up. Yeah. It's crazy to see, you can see that movie, you compare that to the first Bad Boys. It's really like almost like a remake of Beverly Hills Cop. And you could put all those movies, all those Jerry Brookheimer movies back together. And you see like there's some kind of pattern that made all those movies

You know very very successful and and the audience loves watching, you know It's like a comfort food kind of 100% like bad boys though You're right is the is him being like let's do kind of a 90s Beverly Hills cop like that's the most profound update I feel like he'd made to the formula Right since doing Beverly Hills cop. Yeah, and similarly like bad boys as a franchise becomes about their dynamic. But the first movie is like a relatively small premise, which is just the mistaken identity of the two guys. And then once you solidify those characters, you're like, well, now it's just these guys can go off. It's their sensibility. It's their world.

What's the 2000s? I don't know. I'll think about it rush hour 98 is another one big one, right? But that's not broke. I'm right. But look I love the first rush hour. Yeah, but like They both exist as comedy characters first and foremost for most of the movie. Yeah. Yeah, it's two fishes out of water though I guess is sort of the but even the tenor like you never the case Eddie just fucking is a real person in this well let's play the box office game okay December 7th 1984 Griffin it ends up in the highest grossing film this year that's obviously a late release but I do think it ends up the 1984 movie releases yeah no Ghostbusters Ghostb okay. But those are the two biggest movies of. Which famously, of course, that's the other thing was that Winston was written for Eddie

Murphy and he drops out of it to do Beverly Hills Cup. In any other situation would have been a bad decision. But obviously work for him. We've actually done this once before, but we're going to do it again. Number one is Beverly Hills Cup. Fifteen million dollars. It ends up at. Two hundred and

thirty four. Wild. Just for inflation is still the number one R rated movie. Yeah, just for inflation, it made like seven hundred million dollars. Okay, that's above a passion of the Christ.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Above most James Cameron movies. Yeah, yeah, crazy. Number two, Griffin, is the movie that we covered the last time we did this, a Patreon episode of ours. It was a patreon episode December 84. Was it 2010? Yes The year we made contact. That's right. I just you know 2010 the very strange sequel to 2001 many years later Is it Peter hyams? Yeah. Yeah, you guys ever seen 2010?

Well, yeah, it's it's well, you know, it's not as bad as everybody says Is it Peter Hyams? Yeah. Yeah. You guys ever seen 2010? Well, yeah, it's, well, you know, it's not as bad as everybody says. It's all right. It's a, it's a, it explain a lot. Where the other way. They're like, right, let's explain everything that happened now.

Yeah, yeah. We did a Patreon episode on a while ago. First guest for Kubrick, is that where we did that? Yeah. Yeah, it was a fun episode. Oh, what do you think we did for Elaine May? I don't know. Number three, also new this week, is a flop. Is that where we did that? Yeah. Yeah. It was a fun episode. What do you think we did for Elaine May? I don't know.

Number three, also new this week, is a flop. Another sort of buddy crime comedy that is not working. It's very star driven, but it's kind of this sign of like, the 70s are over and the 80s are here. Is it City Heat? City Heat. The Clint Eastwood, Burt Reynolds. Burt and Clint.

It's like a throw, it's like a thirties gangstery. Burt and Clint. It's like a throw. It's like a 30s gangstery kind of movie. Yeah, it's like a Prohibition buddy cop movie. Yeah. Richard Benjamin. Never heard of that. It's forgotten. It's like and obviously like Eastwood is a star throughout the 80s. Yeah. Reynolds is obviously kind of on the downswing.

But they were also best friends. They came up together and it was like they're finally doing a movie together. And no one gave a shit. No one cared. And like, you know, it's like Beverly Hills Cop is the story. Yeah. As is the number four, which has been hanging around for two months. It's sci fi action movie.

We've covered on this podcast, a great movie. I'm sure these guys like it, too. Is it a carpenter? No. No, fuck. Terminator. Bam. The first Terminator. Terminator. Yeah. Yeah. Terminator. Terminator. Yeah. Yeah.

Which is what a year. Wow. Yeah. So then, you know what? I was wrong about Stallone's interest being in competition with Schwarzenegger for this movie.

Yeah. Yeah. I was very wrong. Number five and later. OK, is an action film starring in. It's sort of like the big star, okay is an action film Starring in it's sort of like the big star-making thing for an action star But he's like, you know kind of a lower tier action star, but it but it I feel like this is his best-known movie. This is his best-known movie

There's like a zillion, you know straight to video sequels. Is it missing in action Chuck Norris missing in action Yeah, that's that's that's a classic. It's a classic. It's it's definitely a classic But right like if right that's Chuck Norris is most famous movie, right? What's the other way Delta Force Delta Force? Yeah, I was like the octagon. Well, of course. Yes, mostly Walker Texas Ranger, you know and then right right later, but like I feel like if it's like if He has a franchise it's missing in action. Probably. I've always considered Walker, Texas Ranger to be more of an 800 hour movie You've also got you got night of the comet really, you know You've got Supergirl, speaking of Batgirl.

All right. You've got the Helen Slater Supergirl movie. Yeah, yeah, I saw that too when I was a kid. Supergirl. Terrible movie. No, that was so bad. At the time I didn't know, I was too small. I thought it was cool.

Yeah. Wait, who's the, is it Faye Dunaway? Faye Dunaway's the villain. Yeah. And there's like a sort of like a, there's the, is it Faye Dunaway? Yeah, Faye Dunaway's the villain. Yeah. And there's like a sort of like a, there's like an orb or like a diamond or crystal or something. It's that era still of making comic book movies

and being like, and we'll make up some villains, right? Why would we take anything from the comics? Right, let's do something else. Oh God, You Devil, is that the third Oh God movie? We will cover this trilogy someday. You got a movie called falling in love I like looked up the hero. Yeah, De Niro and Meryl Streep. Yeah kind of a forgotten movie. Yeah. Yeah Whoa, okay never heard of that one. Yeah, and then the best picture winner of 1984

I'm a dais is number 10. I'm a dais. That's that's that movie's dope yo. Perfect movie. It's so good. There's nothing nothing like bad I would ever say about Amadeus. Great best picture winner. It's really salieri. But yeah that's it. Guys thank you so much for coming on to do this. This is crazy. Thank you for having us. It was awesome. Yeah I hope I hope you guys had a good time. Yeah absolutely. But we're looking forward to Bad Boys Ride or Die. Is there anything else? Not for life. Not for life.

But maybe in a couple of years it changes. Maybe for now it's Ride or Die. Go watch Bad Boys for life anytime. Yeah. Is there anything else you guys want to plug before we ship out? People should check out Rebel, which is watchable, streamable in the States. Rentable. Thanks, man.

And maybe use ExpressVPN, past and future sponsor, to check out some of your other movies that might be live. Yeah, who knows? Maybe some of his... And also maybe one day the movie in the fridge is going to come out, who knows? I... My dream. Can I just ask, because he's like my favorite living movie star. What was it like working with Keaton? What was your experience like with him? It's like you're a little kid. Yeah, hell yeah.

He's cooler than what you can imagine. Yeah. He walks on set and he's just like this aura. He's Batman. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's why for us personally we grew up, he's our Batman forever and for life. Yes. Well, not forever, returns. Yeah, returns. Correct. All right, take us out, Griffin. Thank you so much for being here and thank you all for listening. Thank you. Thank you to Marie Berty for helping to produce the show. Thank you to Joe Bohn and Pat Reynolds for our artwork.

AJ McKeon, Alex Barron for our editing. AJ McKeon is also our production coordinator. Thank you to JJ Birch for our research. Lee Montgomery and the Great American Nala for our theme song. A special thank you to our beloved Ben Hosley for putting in the extra hustle and finding a studio in LA where Adele and Bilal could record together on very short turn around. So thank you for putting in that extra work, Ben. You can go to blankcheckpod.com for links to some real nerdy shit, including our Patreon blank check

special features where we are currently doing the Ninja Turtles franchise. Yep that sounds right. Yep. And we'll have just done an episode on Martin Brest to student films his shortness feature Hot Dogs for Gauguin and Hot Tomorrows. Yep. Fun episode. Important context for this guy whose career had a wildly Kind of shot out from the rocket start Tune in next week for Midnight run one of the best fucking movies ever cool movie with returning guest Alan Sepum law. Yep, and as always Eh, eh, eh?