The plot of 48 Hrs is as inessential to the film’s success as it is to the film itself; while few directors can claim to spin a gritty urban tale as colorfully as Walter Hill, the ostensible goals of cop Jack Cates (Nick Nolte) and con Reggie Hammond (Eddie Murphy) fade almost immediately after the film is over. Instead, the crux of the story is centered entirely on the antagonism between the two leads, and the eerily prescient snapshot of post-civil rights race relationships that it provides. While it’s hard to look back at the politics of this film from the post-Obama era and not grimace a little, the ugly frankness probably serves a better function than any number of high-minded liberal attempts to bridge cultural gaps. Similar to Blazing Saddles, the unrestrained racism on display is more than a little uncomfortable, but only because it’s that much more honest.
In the opening scenes of 48 Hours, Albert Ganz (James Remar) and Billy Bear (Sonny Landham) mount a violent spring from prison, and immediately set out into San Francisco to retrieve lost money from Luther (David Patrick Kelly, who unfortunately implores no one in this film to “come out and plaaaaayy”). Cates is immediately put onto the case, and quickly realizes that his chance for tracking down Ganz and Bear is to enlist the help of the incarcerated Hammond; which means letting him out of prison for, you’ll never guess it, 48 Hours. The gruff Cates and the smooth-talking Hammond, in another shocking twist, don’t get along at first, but the pressure of being together, as well as the realization that each of their approaches might be more appropriate for different circumstances, turns them into begrudging partners, if not quite friends.
The value and significance of language can be debated ad nauseum (and given the recent flap over the Bowdlerized version of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, still a very relevant conversation to have), but everyone can probably agree on one thing: it would take a lot for a modern Hollywood film to be released in which a name-above-the-title talent not explicitly cast a villain calls someone a nigger. Specifically, Hammond is called that twice by two different people: by Cates, and by Haden (Frank McCrae), Cates’s frequently-yelling, black boss, who even says it again for emphasis. Murphy, for his own part, seems to take all of this in stride, neither overplaying his hand when he asserts himself against whites who demean him nor appearing at all embarrassed at inhabiting a role that blacks have long found demeaning. He’s definitely not out to redfefine any images, and he couldn’t care any less what you think about that. The sharpness of their antagonism, though not necessarily anachronistic, is almost entirely missing from modern films, which tends to place its examinations of racism safely in the past (and channeling it mostly through the perspective of some white guy who learns how wrong it is), thus freeing its audience of any potential self-reflection that they might have to do. By focusing it through a star like Nolte, Hill brings it out into the open and fixes it onto the character that the white audience will be most likely to identify with. But even if it's no longer possible to do such a thing, is it necessarily a bad approach? Whether or not this kind of thinking has any real positive long-term effects, it is, as enemies of political correctness are so quick (and right) to point out, probably closer to the way that things actually are, and if anyone takes it as a tacit approval of prejudice, that’s not necessarily the movie’s fault.
Having said all that, there can be no questioning as to who came out on top at the end of this. 48 Hrs paved the way for Beverly Hills Cop, which turned Murphy into the biggest film star of the 1980s. Part of that is doubtlessly due to his (then) uncanny ability to take roles that were typically reserved for blacks (con men, homeless people) but refusing to play them as deferential or ashamed, which is part of what makes 48 Hrs, as dated as it is, still feel vital. Neither Cates nor Hammond make any apologies for who they are, nor are they willing to set aside their racial differences until they (exhaustively) work out a way that doesn’t require them to give up anything that they weren’t willing to part with anyways when it gets right down to it. When the two come to an uneasy (and on Cates’s part, more than a little guilty) understanding, it comes mainly because they have already said absolutely everything that they could say to each other, with as much vitriol as they could muster. Because 48 Hrs is willing to have them say all of it (and it sure is all of it), the compromise feels as genuine as the conflict building up to it.
Blu-ray Bonus Features
The theatrical trailer is also included.
"48 Hrs" is on sale February 22, 2011 and is rated R. Action. Directed by Walter Hill. Written by Roger Spottiswoode, Walter Hill, Larry Gross, Steven E. de Souza. Starring Annette Otoole, David Patrick Kelly, Eddie Murphy, Frank Mcrae, James Remar, Nick Nolte, Sonny Landham.
