The genre Eddie Murphy claims to have pioneered: “I know it sounds pretentious”
He’s committed many crimes against cinema in the last two decades, which convinced him to exile himself from Hollywood entirely for the better part of a decade, but that shouldn’t be allowed to obscure the fact that Eddie Murphy was one of the most important stars in Hollywood’s recent history.
While there had been Black movie stars before, with Sidney Poitier and Richard Pryor becoming two bankable household names for very different reasons, thanks to their respective dramatic and comedic prowess, Murphy was the first who consistently headlined a string of international blockbuster hits.
Once he made his feature debut in 1982’s 48 Hrs, it became clear that he would rapidly outgrow Saturday Night Live. That’s exactly what he did, too, and within the space of five years, films like Trading Places, Beverly Hills Cop, and Coming to America had established him as the industry’s top draw, biggest star, and most profitable performer, bar none.
He helped break down the doors that Denzel Washington and Will Smith would walk through when they emerged as two of cinema’s most popular and reliable top-grossing leading men, but Murphy maintains that he did more than that; he explained that he almost single-handedly popularised one of cinema’s favourite subgenres.
“I know it sounds pretentious if you don’t know the history, but I kind of pioneered,” he told The Toronto Sun. “The very first action comedy movie is 48 Hrs. Before 48 Hrs, there were no movies where you had action and comedy. Serious cop movies with people getting killed and bad guys, and comedy. That didn’t exist before 48 Hrs. Then, after 48 Hrs came Beverly Hills Cop, then the genre just exploded.”
Is he right? In a word, yes. While there had been films that balanced action and comedy before Murphy teamed up with Nick Nolte in his first big-screen role, it was Walter Hill’s picture that introduced the tropes that virtually every entry in the buddy format has followed ever since, and they remain firmly in place today, more than 40 years after its release.
Take two disparate personalities, at least one of whom is a law enforcement officer, position one of them as the grizzled straight man to the other’s charismatic quip-dropper, plunge them into a madcap adventure that lets them form a mutual respect that develops into friendship, and you’ve got basically every action comedy of the last four decades.
“All the cops had one-liners, and they started mixing action and comedy,” Murphy added. “But the root of all those pictures is 48 Hrs. Every action comedy.” Again, he’s not wrong, and alongside Beverly Hills Cop, he was the single biggest influence on a style that dominated the ’80s and beyond.
Shane Black and Richard Donner’s Lethal Weapon arguably perfected the formula, but there wouldn’t have been a formula to begin with if it weren’t for Murphy.
