48 Hrs. begins with a violent and bloody jailbreak.  The fearsome Billy Bear (Sonny Landham) helps his criminal associate, Albert Ganz (James Remar), escape from a chain gang and kills several guards in the process.  Billy and Ganz then head to San Francisco, where they start killing their former associates while searching for Luther (David Patrick Kelly).  Another bloody shootout leaves several detectives dead and SFPD Detective Jack Cates (Nick Nolte) looking for revenge.

That’s not the way you might expect one of the most famous comedies of the 80s to begin.  It’s not until Jack arranges for another associate of of Ganz’s to be released from prison for 48 hours that anything humorous happens in the film.  However, because Reggie Hammond is played by Eddie Murphy, 48 Hrs. quickly becomes very funny.

Murphy was appearing on Saturday Night Live when he was cast in 48 Hrs, in a role that was written with Richard Pryor in mind.  One of the first things that Murphy requested was that the character’s name be changed from Willie Biggs to Reggie Hammond.  Murphy made the role his own and watching him, it’s hard to believe that he was only 21 and also that 48 Hrs was his first film.  Murphy performs with the confidence of a natural movie star.  He’s good in the film’s most famous scene, where he pretends to be a cop and talks down an entire bar full of rednecks.  (I can’t repeat his most famous line but everyone knows it.)  But Murphy is even better in the scenes where he’s just reacting to Nolte’s slovenly cop.

The comedy in 48 Hrs comes from the mismatched partnership and initially hostile chemistry of Jack Cates and Reggie Hammond.  Cates has a job to do while Reggie, understandably, wants to enjoy as much freedom as he can before he gets sent back to prison.  The humor is so effective because it’s almost entirely character-based.  There are no gags but there are two well-written characters with differing ways of looking at the world who have to learn how to work with each other.  The two of them start out disliking and distrusting each other but ultimately become best friends, even if Jack does punch Reggie and Reggie does keep trying to steal Jack’s lighter.  Because this is a Walter Hill movie, there’s still a lot of action.  Nolte and Murphy may make you laugh but there’s nothing funny about full-on psycho performances of James Remar and Sonny Landham.  48 Hrs. not only allows Murphy and Nolte to show off their comedic ability but it also allows them to be true action heroes.

Popular with critics and audiences, 48 Hrs. was the most commercially successful film of 1982.  It set the standard for most buddy-cop movies to this day and it introduced the world to Eddie Murphy.