Movie of the Year: 1982 – 48HRS.
Movie of the Year: 1982
48Hrs.
Does 48Hrs. have what it takes to be 1982’s Movie of the Year?
The first film we talk about in the 1982 season is 48Hrs, and in many ways it is the perfect movie to get us going on the new season. In the late 70’s, a couple of dudes had a dream: what if a white dude and a Black dude teamed up together to solve a crime. The plan was set, and Clint Eastwood and Richard Pryor were approached to star. Eventually Eastwood bowed out and Pryor became too big of a star, so the people around Paramount had an idea: use the reworked script as a star vehicle for Nick Nolte and cast that new twenty year old kid from Saturday Night Live. That’s right, Eddie Murphy was 20 years old when he stared in this movie.
The script went through a couple of re-writes, with dialogue changes happening throughout filming. The writers argued, the execs hated Eddie’s performance, and the movie opened in third place. It went on to be the seventh highest grossing movie of the year, and created a star.
The story revolves around a cop “borrowing” a prisoner for 48 hours–titular!–in order to find a villain, played by James Remar. It’s got an Eddie Murphy who was just about to explode into superstardom that wouldn’t end until that Norbit movie put the last big clump of dirt on his career. It’s got a Nick Nolte who was already well on his way to becoming Hollywood’s crustiest actor. And it’s about race, racism, the prison industrial complex, and policing–all topics we get to see share screen time with cool shootouts and some truly great shots of early eighties San Fran (I call it that because I’m basically a local).
Make sure to also: