Another 48 Hrs.

Roger Ebert started his review by asking, “You know how sometimes, in a dream, you’ll see these familiar scenes and faces floating in and out of focus, but you’re not sure how they connect?” “Another 48 Hrs.,” is a 1990 movie that feels the same way. The basic idea is familiar from the original “48 Hrs.” and the villains and cops are all basic movie stereotypes. However, what exactly is going on? Everybody seems to be looking for the Iceman, who is a criminal genius in control of all drug traffic in the San Francisco Bay area. A cop named Cates has been trying to find him for years – but every time he gets close, the Iceman slips away. Meanwhile, a convict named Hammond is about to be released from prison. Maybe he knows who the Iceman is. Maybe he can help Cates. On the other hand, maybe he can’t. He sure doesn’t want to.

Ebert said, “Watching the movie, I was trying to remember the details of the 1982 film.” In the first film, Nolte was trying to find some cop killers and he got Hammond out of prison for 48 hours to help him out. They became quite a duo – the hung-over white cop and the confident young black man, both suspicious of each other, both learning to be friends.

The movie had the scene that made Murphy into a star, a scene where he walked into a redneck bar, impersonated a police officer, and intimidated everyone with just the amount of his personality.

In the sequel, years have passed. Cates has stopped drinking (and apparently lost his long-suffering girlfriend). Hammond is back in prison, but Cates is holding $475,000 for him when he gets out. Meanwhile, in a shoot-out during a motorcycle race, Cates kills a man who fired at him. However, the other guy’s gun disappears, and with no evidence besides Cates’ troublesome personnel record, his badge is lifted and he’s charged with manslaughter.

Ebert noted, “Meanwhile, there is a bunch of long-haired, leather-jacketed, tattooed motorcycle gang members who cruise the desert blowing people away. They apparently work for someone who works for the Iceman. They want Hammond dead – so badly that they try to kill him by opening fire on the prison bus that’s returning him to civilization. You might ask why the bus driver couldn’t simply push them off the road during the high-speed chase, but that would be too logical a question for this movie, which specializes in confusing and endless action scenes.”

There’s one crucial difference between this movie and the original: We never get any idea of the friendship and camaraderie between Hammond and Cates. Their idea of friendship comes down to hitting each other as hard as they can, “to even the score.” They have no dialogue scenes together of any depth. The plot they’re in is so confusing that at one point they simply go back to the prison and ask one long-time inmate, played by Bernie Casey, to identify the guy they’re after. He gives them the man’s name and address. How does he know all of this information? Don’t ask.

Ebert pointed out, “Meanwhile, back at police headquarters, the cop plot is recycled from dozens of other movies. How often do we have to sit through that scene where the Internal Affairs guy makes the hero hand over his badge and gun. Leaving all the other movies out of it, this is the second time in a few months that Nike Nolte has personally had to go through that scene (after “Q & A”).” When the big secret of the Iceman’s identity finally is revealed, you ask: Would the drug kingpin of the entire Bay Area really need to keep the daytime job? Ebert said, ““Another 48 HRS” was directed by Walter Hill, who also did the previous movie, and who knows how to shoot violence so it looks convincing, although here he stages a scene that sets some kind of indoor record for the amount of glass that is broken. Hill and his writers, John Fasano, Jeb Stuart and Larry Gross, have not exactly extended themselves to create a new and original story for this movie, and the big set-piece once again involves Murphy and Nolte inside a redneck bar. It’s an aimless scene with a lot of loose ends, a reminder of how well the earlier scene worked.”

What holds the movie together to some degree is the simple presence of Murphy and Nolte, who are not given great dialogue or much of a story, but who have a certain charisma that’s interesting to watch. Ebert said, “Murphy in particular needed this movie, I think, as a corrective after his unfortunate “Harlem Nights” – a movie that was seen by a great many people, many of whom didn’t enjoy it all that much.”

If it does nothing else, “Another 48 Hrs.” reminds us that Murphy is a huge, genuine talent. Now it’s time for him to make a good movie.

I guess people can guess, this is not a good sequel. I don’t understand what could have happened that made this sequel bad. Because this could have potentially launched a franchise, but this film killed the idea. If you liked the first movie, don’t see the sequel. This is going to shame you for seeing it and you will regret putting this on.

Next week, we’re going to look at another classic film in “Nick Nolte Month.”