Great Character: Axel Foley (“Beverly Hills Cop”)
The Great Character theme for the month: Action Comedy. Today: Axel Foley from the movie Beverly Hills Cop.
Lets go back thirty years, when 1984 shaped up to become a bonafide box office bonanza, being the first calendar to crack the $4 billion mark. To put that number in proper perspective, it only took 2014 five months to beat 1984’s entire theatrical receipt sum by the end of May with a total of $4.1807 billion. Believe it or not, only four of the top 25 grossing films of 1984 were sequels…yes…only four sequels, while 12 of the original movies in 1984’s top 25 received their own sequels or remakes in later years. That makes 1984 a year of great new stories and great new characters — one definitely being Axel Foley in Beverly Hills Cop.
The highly competitive year of 1984 produced genuine pop culture phenomena like: Ghostbusters, Gremlins, The Karate Kid, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Purple Rain and The Terminator, but it was Beverly Hills Cop that dominated them all with $234,760,478. Beverly Hills Cop may not have had ghosts, monsters time travel or aliens from above the stars, but it did have one super nova star from Earth — Eddie Murphy.
The massive success of this fish-out-of-water action comedy really shows just how huge Eddie Murphy was in 1984. Murphy had an epic run on TV sketch comedy staple Saturday Night Live (1980–1984), two comedy albums Eddie Murphy (1982) and Eddie Murphy: Comedian (1983) on Columbia Records with a Grammy nomination and a Grammy win respectively, his red leather stand-up HBO special: Eddie Murphy Delirious (1983), and also two back-to-back hit movies with his debut 48 Hrs. (1982)and his second big screen leap Trading Places (1983) with Golden Globe nominations for both of those leading roles.
Lets be clear, in the first five years of the1980s, Eddie Murphy had become a king in comedy, television and motion pictures. With Beverly Hills Cop II, Beverly Hills Cop III, and a Brett Ratner-directed Beverly Hills Cop IV currently moving toward production, the wise-cracking Detroit cop Axel Foley is still clearly a character Eddie Murphy remains widely associated with.
Beverly Hills Cop IMDB:
A freewheeling Detroit cop pursuing a murder investigation finds himself dealing with the very different culture of Beverly Hills.
Axel Foley is not just an underpaid Detroit police officer who drives a “crappy blue Chevy Nova” that is in need of brakes and a paint job. Axel, a cool automotive name for a dude from the “Motor City,” is that free-spirited guy that seems to loosen up any tight situation with a smirk and a little enthusiasm. He is the least likely to die from a heart attack, with his easy-going attitude and the ability to transform stress and annoyance into the punch lines of his jokes.
Co-workers that get on Axel’s last nerve get this cool and calm response:
AXEL FOLEY: Jeff, get away from me. I’m going to shoot you all right?
Getting arrested unnecessarily? No worries for Axel:
AXEL FOLEY: This is the cleanest and nicest police car I’ve ever been in in my life. This thing’s nicer than my apartment.
But the brilliant balance of Axel Foley’s character is that when his kindness gets taken for a weakness — the heat is on! Disrespect never goes unchecked.
AXEL FOLEY: Disturbing the peace? I got thrown out of a window! What’s the fuckin’ charge for getting pushed out of a moving car, huh? Jaywalking?
Let’s not mistake Axel Foley for just a jokey fast-talker. He is just as much a fast thinker as well. Throw him in the middle of tremendous trouble and he will transform that scenario into his favor. Eddie Murphy’s vast experience playing characters and doing impressions on “Saturday Night Live” and on comedy show stages served him well as Axel Foley finds himself having to pretend to be a loud mouth cigarette salesman while undercover and a “Rolling Stones reporter” in Beverly Hills to “interview Michael Jackson” to get a room in a ritzy hotel.
Foley’s spontaneous characterizations also benefit him while pursuing the killers of his murdered neighborhood pal Mikey Tandino while shuffling through the economically privileged domain of Beverly Hills. He instantly becomes an inspector for the United States Customs Service to investigate a bonded shipping warehouse and an intoxicated imaginary friend of a suspicious gunman at a strip club. Axel Foley’s most flamboyant transformation comes in the way of “Ramon,” the invented sex partner of antagonist Victor Maitland at a luxurious members only club.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmNJ03s2ZuM
Watching Axel Foley outsmart his fellow police officers, detectives, sergeants, lieutenants, multimillionaires and trigger-happy goons keeps the Beverly Hills Cop plot entertaining and Axel’s staccato chuckle a welcomed victory cheer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6y-pdLyZPJ8
For his disarming charm, his cunning improvisations, his full-throttle energy, and his ability to deal with being under pressure without pressure — Axel Foley is an unforgettably GREAT CHARACTER in the action comedy genre.
Special kudos to screenwriter Daniel Petrie, Jr. for the screenplay which is in many respects the paradigmatic 80s script, primarily because of the Axel Foley character.
Thank you, Jason, for this post. Please join us in comments to discuss Beverly Hills Cop.
You may follow Jason on Twitter: @A2Jason.
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