Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F (15, 115 mins)
Verdict: Pleasing nostalgia trip
Ever since the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the measure of a seismic world event is whether we can remember where we were when we heard the news.
For my generation, Diana’s death and 9/11 were the ultimate ‘JFK’ moments.
Less dramatically, but just as vividly, I have the same recall with films. I can remember, in just about every case, which cinema I was in and who I was with when I first saw a significant movie.
For example, I went with my mum to the Palace, Southport, to see the 1969 double-bill of Ring Of Bright Water and The Plank that made me understand, in my childlike way, the masterstroke of following a near-hysterical weepie with uproarious slapstick comedy.
And some 15 years later, with my girlfriend at the New Picture House in St Andrews, I saw Beverly Hills Cop.
The latest Beverly Hills Cop outing, starring Eddie Murphy as Axel Foley is the fourth in the series, but the first for 30 years
The film is an ideal platform for Murphy, an evergreen 63, to show that as cocksure Foley he still commands the screen with that matchless ability to play for laughs and thrills at the same time
Murphy stars alongside Taylour Paige as Jane Saunders, Foley’s estranged daughter
From the outset I loved its potent mix of action and comedy, and of course the incongruity of Eddie Murphy’s street-smart Detroit detective operating in pampered Beverly Hills.
But most of all I loved Murphy’s pitch-perfect performance in a title role reportedly — and now all but unimaginably — offered to Sylvester Stallone, Harrison Ford and Mickey Rourke before him.
Since then I’ve had an enduring affection for that film, and so I sat down to the sequels with some trepidation.
None of them have matched the original, and the same is true of this latest Netflix effort, the fourth in the series but the first for 30 years.
And yet it’s genuine fun, all the same, and an ideal platform for Murphy, an evergreen 63, to show that as cocksure Axel Foley he still commands the screen with that matchless ability to play for laughs and thrills at the same time.
At the outset Foley is still busting criminals in inner-city Detroit, but heads for Los Angeles when he learns that his estranged daughter Jane (Taylour Paige) is in mortal danger.
Jane is a righteous young lawyer, vigorously defending a man who has been framed for murder by a corrupt cop.
Naturally, she has stumbled on a major conspiracy involving, inevitably, a drugs cartel.
With the strained father-daughter dynamic as a sub-plot, all this could be wearisomely formulaic stuff, but somehow the predictability is an asset.
The narrative is very 1980s, but that means we can just sit back and enjoy the nostalgia trip.
The cast of this latest film also includes Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Detective Bobby Abbott, and Bronson Pinchot as Serge
Besides, there’s a place for 1980s virtues, and indeed a place for several of the original cast, including Paul Reiser and Judge Reinhold.
On the whole, first-time director Mark Molloy astutely abides by Murphy’s law: give rascally Axel enough funny lines (co-writer Will Beall is himself a former Los Angeles detective) and daft escapades (which here involve a stolen helicopter, golf cart and 10-ton truck) and he will keep the show on the road.
Kevin Bacon plays the chief baddie, who admittedly doesn’t need to do a lot more than grin wolfishly throughout
Murphy gets further solid support, incidentally, from Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Jane’s ex-boyfriend, another rare honest detective, and from Kevin Bacon as the chief baddie, who admittedly doesn’t need to do a lot more than grin wolfishly throughout.
Still, at least it makes a pleasant change seeing Bacon actually acting, rather than advertising mobile phone networks or Hyundai cars or recyclable paper clips.
I can’t be the only one of us to have resolved some time ago that whatever he’s selling, I’ll try not to buy.
Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F is on Netflix
MaXXXine (18, 104 mins) Verdict: Slasher pastiche
But in another twist of those six degrees of Kevin Bacon, up he also pops in MaXXXine, ably playing a sleazy private detective in Ti West’s latest slasher- horror starring British actress Mia Goth as Texan porn actress Maxine Minx.
Those who saw X (2022) and the same year’s prequel, Pearl, will know that Maxine, survivor of the ‘Texas porn star massacre’, is desperate for celebrity.
This third film, set in 1985, begins with an ominous quote from Bette Davis: ‘In this business, until you’re known as a monster, you’re not a star.’
Ti West’s latest slasher- horror Maxxxine stars British actress Mia Goth as Texan porn actress Maxine Minx with Elizabeth Debicki as a film director
In a grim Reagan-era Los Angeles, Maxine wants to break out of porn and is auditioning for a horror film called The Puritan II, which might bring her the stardom she craves and is directed by an imperious Brit played by Elizabeth Debicki.
In the meantime, a Satanic serial killer known as the Night Stalker is at large, terrorising young women.
Deftly, and not a little mischievously, West keeps these two strands interlocking, with repeated nods to bygone Hollywood, as when Maxine grinds out her cigarette on the pavement star dedicated to Theda Bara — silent cinema’s original vamp.
At times the film veers awfully close to what I suppose might be termed ‘slasher pastiche’, and also features one of the most laughable ‘Yorkshire’ accents you will ever hear, firmly putting the ha! in Harrogate, from Lily Collins as a horror film actress supposedly from the north of England.
Still, it’s imaginative and energetic, with a cracking 1980s soundtrack that ends, neatly enough, with the Kim Carnes hit Bette Davis Eyes.
MaXXXine is in cinemas now
50 years on, Gene Hackman at his very best
The Conversation (12A, 113 mins)
Gene Hackman gave plenty of wonderful performances in a glorious acting career but his quietest and most introspective is in my view also his greatest.
The Conversation is back in cinemas from today, restored to mark its 50th anniversary.
If you’ve never seen Francis Ford Coppola’s brilliant psychological thriller on the silver screen, seek it out.
Hackman is stunning as crack surveillance expert Harry Caul, a paranoid loner whose job both makes him and, once he starts getting sucked into the lives of those he eavesdrops on, also breaks him.
Coppola wrote as well as directed, clearly influenced by the Watergate crisis that, a few months after the film’s release, forced the resignation of President Richard Nixon.
The Conversation gives a fascinating insight into America at that time, as well as showcasing movie-acting at its finest, not just from Hackman, but also from a supporting cast including John Cazale, Robert Duvall and, in an early role, Harrison Ford.
If you’ve never seen Francis Ford Coppola’s brilliant psychological thriller The Conversation on the silver screen, seek it out
The Nature Of Love (15, 110 mins)
The Nature of Love is also well worth seeing. It’s an enormously engaging French- Canadian film about a philosophy professor who falls hopelessly in love, and lust, with the blue-collar guy hired to renovate her lake house.
But can raw physical attraction take the place of the intellectual jousting she has with her long-time partner, whom she leaves to pursue her affair?
It’s a funny, smart, sexy film.
Both films are in cinemas now.
