48 Hrs.

''48 Hrs.'' (pronounced 'forty-eight hours') is a 1982 American buddy cop action comedy film directed by Walter Hill, from a screenplay co-written with Larry Gross, Steven E. de Souza and Roger Spottiswoode. It stars Nick Nolte and Eddie Murphy (the latter in his film debut) as a cop and a convict, respectively, who team up to catch two hardened criminals. Titled after the amount of time the duo has to solve the crime, ''48 Hrs.'' was Joel Silver's first title as a producer.

Though predated by Richard Rush's 1974 film '' Freebie and the Bean'', the film is often credited as being the first in the "buddy cop" genre, later popularized by films such as ''Lethal Weapon'', '' Bad Boys'', and ''Rush Hour''. Its supporting cast features Annette O'Toole, James Remar, Frank McRae, David Patrick Kelly, Sonny Landham, Jonathan Banks and Brion James. The musical score was composed by James Horner.

Released by Paramount Pictures on December 8, 1982, ''48 Hrs.'' was one of the most commercially successful films of 1982, received widespread acclaim from critics, and launched Murphy's film career by earning him a Golden Globe Award nomination for New Star of the Year – Actor. A sequel, ''Another 48 Hrs.'', was released in 1990, also directed by Walter Hill, with Nolte and Murphy reprising their roles.

Plot

Convicted career criminal Albert Ganz, with the help of his accomplice, Billy Bear, escapes from custody in a road gang -- a group of prison inmates working on a road, and watched by guards. They travel to San Francisco and kill Henry Wong, a former associate. SFPD Inspector Jack Cates, accompanied by Inspectors Algren and Van Zant, trace Ganz and Billy to the Walden Hotel, where they've checked in under aliases. Ganz and Billy ambush the officers. In the ensuing shootout, Ganz kills Algren and Van Zant, and escapes with Billy, taking Jack's service revolver with him.

Later armed with a replacement gun, Jack tracks down Ganz's former partner-in-crime Reggie Hammond, who is in prison with six months left on a three-year sentence for armed robbery. After a memorable first meeting in prison, Jack manages to get Reggie a 48-hour release into his custody so that Reggie can help Jack find Ganz and Billy. Reggie leads Jack to an apartment where Ganz and Billy's associate, Luther Kelly, lives. When Jack looks around, Luther fires at him, and refuses to be interrogated, so Jack arrests Luther.

That night, Reggie leads Jack to ''Torchy's'', a redneck hangout where Billy used to be a bartender. Reggie, on a challenge from Jack, shakes the bar down, using Jack's badge, single-handedly bringing the crowd under his control. They get a lead on Billy's girlfriend Casey, who lives in an apartment with Ganz's girlfriend Sally. Jack and Reggie go to the apartment, but they get nothing out of Casey and Sally, and Casey says that she threw Billy out.

Tensions between Reggie and Jack finally erupt into a fistfight in a garbage-filled alley, until it's stopped by a pair of patrol officers. Afterwards, Reggie finally admits to Jack that he, Ganz, Billy, Luther, and Henry had robbed a drug dealer of $500,000 some years earlier, and that the money was (and remains) stashed in the trunk of Reggie's Porsche in a downtown parking garage. Instead of splitting the cash, Ganz sold Reggie out, resulting in Reggie's incarceration. It's the reason why Ganz and Billy have taken Luther's girlfriend Rosalie: they want Luther to go to the parking garage and get the money, in exchange for Rosalie's safe return. That's why Ganz had Billy help him escape from the road gang.

On the next morning, Luther, who is out on bail, goes and gets the car, and Reggie and Jack tail him to a Muni station where Ganz comes to get the money. Luther, however, recognizes Jack, and Ganz and Billy escape after Billy kills a cop, while Reggie chases after Luther. Left with nothing, Jack ends up going back to the police station, where he waits for Reggie to call. That night, after the call from Reggie, Jack goes to Vroman's, a nightclub in the Fillmore District, to find Reggie, who has bought a gun from an underground dealer, and tracked Luther to a hotel across the street from Vroman's. Jack, humbled, apologizes for continuously berating and insulting Reggie.

Jack lends Reggie some money to pay for a room at the hotel so he can have sex with Candy, a woman he's met, but just as Reggie leaves the club with her, he sees Luther leave the hotel, and he alerts Jack. Luther gets in a stolen bus driven by Billy, and hands over the money to Ganz, who fatally shoots Luther (Rosalie's fate is left ambiguous). Ganz spots Jack and Reggie beside the bus in Jack's Cadillac DeVille Convertible, and a car chase/gunfight ensues, which ends when Billy forces Jack's Cadillac through the window of a Cadillac dealership's showroom. At this point, following a heated verbal thrashing from Jack's superior, Captain Haden, during which Jack defended Reggie from Haden's wrath, Jack and Reggie are ready to resign themselves to the fact that they failed to catch Ganz.

At a local bar, Jack wonders if Billy might go back to see Casey, and use her and Sally's place as a hideout. Jack and Reggie go back to Casey and Sally's place, and force their way inside. Reggie finds Billy in a bedroom, and aims a gun at him. Billy approaches Reggie with a large knife, but Reggie gets off two quick shots, killing Billy. Ganz escapes into a maze of alleyways, and Jack and Reggie follow. Ganz captures Reggie. Jack approaches and shoots Ganz in the shoulder, throwing him away from Reggie. A furious Ganz, who can't believe that he got shot, stands up and charges at Jack, but Jack kills Ganz by shooting him six more times.

Jack, driving Reggie's car, takes Reggie to see Candy at her apartment so he can have sex with her. When Reggie returns, Jack puts the satchel with the $500,000 in it back in the trunk of Reggie's car, but asks for a loan to buy a new car when Reggie is released, to which Reggie agrees. Jack gives Reggie a stern warning about changing his ways once he's released, telling Reggie that if he doesn't, then he'll put Reggie back in prison. Reggie agrees to change his ways, while half attempting to steal Jack's lighter. The two men share a laugh before Jack drives Reggie back to the prison.

Cast

* Nick Nolte as San Francisco Police Inspector Jack Cates
* Eddie Murphy as Reggie Hammond
* Annette O'Toole as Elaine Marshall
* Frank McRae as Captain Haden
* James Remar as Albert Ganz
* David Patrick Kelly as Luther Kelly
* Sonny Landham as Billy Bear
* Brion James as Inspector Ben Kehoe
* Kerry Sherman as Rosalie
* Jonathan Banks as Inspector Algren
* James Keane as Inspector Van Zant
* Tara King as Frizzy
* Greta Blackburn as Lisa
* Margot Rose as Casey
* Denise Crosby as Sally
* Olivia Brown as Candy
* Jack Thibeau as Inspector Lloyd
* Clare Nono as Ruth
* Sandy Martin as Officer Kramer
* Chris Mulkey as Officer Bellis
* John Hauk as Henry Wong
* Peter Jason as ''Torchy's'' Bartender
* John Dennis Johnston as ''Torchy's'' Patron
* Ola Ray as ''Vroman’s'' Dancer

Production

Development and writing

Lawrence Gordon came up with the original idea for the film. The premise had the Governor of Louisiana's daughter kidnapped by a criminal, who strapped dynamite to her head and threatened to blow her up in 48 hours if the ransom was not met. The meanest cop goes to the worst prison in the state and gets out the most vicious criminal for his knowledge of the kidnapper who was his cellmate. Walter Hill says Gordon may have had the idea as far back as 1971 and a few writers worked on the project. In 1975 Gordon was making '' Hard Times'' with writer-director Walter Hill and editor Roger Spottiswoode. Spottiswoode wanted to direct and Hill suggested he break in by writing a script. He did a draft of ''48 Hours'' supervised by Hill for Columbia Pictures, who had financed ''48 Hours''. Later Tracy Keenan Wynn worked on the script.

The film moved from Columbia to Paramount, which wanted to do a draft for Clint Eastwood. They hired Hill to rewrite the script with Eastwood as the criminal. He did so "but when I turned it in I said that I didn't think it would work," Hill said, adding "that the best idea would be to make Richard Pryor the criminal and have someone like Eastwood play the cop. Back in '78 or '79, no one seemed to think this was such a good idea." Eastwood ended up playing a criminal in '' Escape from Alcatraz'' instead. As a result, '' 48 Hrs.'' went into limbo for two years. However, Gordon and his co-producer Joel Silver did not forget the project. Gordon called Hill and asked him if he would make the film with Nick Nolte as Cates. "Paramount felt that the combination of Nick Nolte and a good black actor would be commercial," said Hill. "What happened is very simple: Richard Pryor is now an enormous movie star, and that's changed everybody's mind about black lead players."

From the start, Hill envisioned a more improvisational film than he'd ever before created. "The story is a traditional urban thriller: two terrible guys are out there and have to be brought down," he said. "But even though I enjoy working in genres, the point is always to explode them or give them a transfusion. So I made a very conscious decision to go with the elements of personality of the two players, rather than be overly genuflective to the narrative. Thrusting a white policeman and a black convict together carries so much gravity that we didn't have to beat the white-black thing to death. If it works, it's because of the actors' personalities." Hill's first choice after Richard Pryor was Gregory Hines. When he was not available, Hill's then-girlfriend Hildy Gottlieb recommended her client, Eddie Murphy, then best known for his work on ''Saturday Night Live''. The character of Reggie Hammond was originally named Willie Biggs, but Eddie Murphy felt that was too stereotypical of a black man's name and changed it to Reggie Hammond.

Steven E. de Souza worked on the script for a few weeks after Eddie Murphy was cast. Critic Michael Sragow says "The producers recommended de Souza to Hill because they thought he'd be good at adding a light touch to the action. Hill didn't find de Souza fast enough or his style of comic writing appropriate to the movie; he thought the writer contributed gags instead of personality touches (very few of which were used), and he just didn't develop the rapport with de Souza that he'd later have with Gross." Hill brought on Larry Gross to work on the script three weeks before shooting. He told Gross "I've been working this fella and while I like em I know it's not gonna work out...." and called the film "a shaggy dog story. '' Defiant Ones'' plus chuckles."

Sragow says, "Hill has been known throughout his career for defining character through action rather than psychological banter, but he knew that this movie would be more of a character piece than a plot picture, and he wanted a writer who'd challenge his own habits and assumptions. Throughout filming, Hill joked that he waved the flag called 'myth and archetype'—trying to play off the folkloric expectations an audience might have for a big blonde hero like Nick Nolte-while Larry Gross waved a flag called 'social and psychological realism.' The writers' relationship became so symbiotic that Gross often found Hill coming down on the side of S&PR and Gross defending the prerogatives of M&A."

Gross says his main contributions were: the idea that Reggie Hammond wanted badly to have sex after three years in prison; Nick Nolte having a relationship with his girlfriend that mirrored the frustration Eddie was having; improving "the nuances of the relationships between Nick and his girl, his boss and the killers. The killers were sharpened up and made more interesting... Whenever Walter could invent a monologue for one of the women (all bit parts), he would." Gross thought Hill had received "a bum rap on the woman question." "One of the things I think makes ''48 HRS.'' really more interesting than the average kind of movie like this," says its co-writer, "is that, although women play relatively small roles in the narrative, they kind of haunt everyone's imagination. The film really is sort of a screwball comedy about men and women trying to get together and not getting together, even though it is a very conventional gangster piece." "People had this perception of Walter being melancholy," Gross said. "And now that he's made this film no one thinks he's melancholy anymore."

Filming

Filming started on May 17, 1982, and ended on August 18, 1982. The film was shot on-location in San Francisco and Los Angeles.

Murphy started a few weeks after principal photography began because he was finishing up a season of ''Saturday Night Live''. The shoot went well but Hill ran into problems with studio executives. Michael Eisner, then head of Paramount, was worried that the film was not funny enough. Hill and his co-screenwriter, Larry Gross wrote more material tailored to Nolte's and Murphy's personalities. By Hill's account, they rewrote Murphy's character right to the very last day of shooting. Executives also found the footage of the gunfight in the hotel to be too violent and were worried that it would kill the film's humor. They told Hill that he would never work for Paramount again as a result. Actor Chris Mulkey, said it was widely known on set that Paramount executives hated what they had seen of Murphy's performance in dailies and wanted to fire him, but Nolte and Hill fought to keep him. Mulkey remembered Murphy as a diligent performer who was open to suggestions and stuck to the script.

In 2008, co-writer Larry Gross's contemporaneous diary of his days on set was published on the MovieCityNews website.

Music

In January 2011, Intrada Records released the world-premiere recording of James Horner's score and songs from the movie in a limited-edition run of 5,000 units. This was the first official release of the score; previous pressings from Europe were unofficial bootlegs with music from other James Horner film scores.

Reception

Box office

''48 Hrs.'' opened in the United States on Wednesday, December 8, 1982, with its first weekend the same as '' The Toy'' and '' Airplane II: The Sequel'' and finished behind them in third place for the weekend with a gross of $4,369,868 from 850 screens, and had a gross of $5,273,192 from its first 5 days. The film grossed $78,868,508 overall at the U.S. and Canada box office, surpassing their combined box-office, to become the seventh highest-grossing film of 1982.

Critical response

''48 Hrs.'' received critical acclaim and is considered by many as one of the best films of 1982. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a 92% approval rating, based on 53 reviews, with an average rating of 7.4/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Marking an auspicious feature film debut for Eddie Murphy, ''48 Hrs.'' is a briskly paced action comedy that succeeds largely due to the outstanding chemistry between its two leads". On Metacritic, the film has a score of 71 out of 100, based on 8 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews. In 2007, the staff at IGN named the movie the third-greatest buddy cop film.

Accolades

Sequel and remakes

A sequel, ''Another 48 Hrs.'', was released in 1990. Walter Hill returned to direct, and Nolte, Murphy, James, and McRae all reprised their roles. The film was a box office success but received negative reviews.

A Hindi-language Indian remake, , was released in 1984, with Jackie Shroff and Anil Kapoor in the lead roles. A Kannada-language remake, ''Police File'', was released in 1992.

In 2017, the Safdie brothers announced they would helm a remake and co-write the script with Jerrod Carmichael. In December 2019, the Safdies stated they reworked their script into a separate original idea. As of 2025, the film has not been produced.

References

External links

*

Larry Gross'
''48 Hrs.'' Diaries, Part 1

an

{{Portal bar, 1980s, Film

1982 films
1982 comedy films
1982 action comedy films
1980s buddy comedy films
1980s buddy cop films
1980s crime comedy films
1980s English-language films
1980s police procedural films
1980s American films
1980s chase films
American action comedy films
American buddy comedy films
American buddy cop films
American crime comedy films
American police detective films
Fictional portrayals of the San Francisco Police Department
Films directed by Walter Hill
Films produced by Joel Silver
Films produced by Lawrence Gordon
Films scored by James Horner
Films set in San Francisco
Films set in the San Francisco Bay Area
Films shot in San Francisco
Films with screenplays by Walter Hill
Films with screenplays by Steven E. de Souza
Paramount Pictures films
American chase films
American buddy action films
English-language action comedy films
English-language crime comedy films
English-language thriller films
English-language buddy comedy films