48 Hrs.

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In director Walter Hill's 1982 action comedy, 48 Hrs., Jack Cates (Nick Nolte) is a San Francisco cop on the trail of two cop killers, Albert Ganz (James Remar,) and Billy Bear (Sonny Landham.) Not making progress, Jack turns to Reggie Hammond (Eddie Murphy,) a former partner of the two killers. Reggie is serving time: he has six months remaining on a three year armed robbery sentence, so Jack pulls some strings and gets Reggie released for 48 hours so that Reggie can help him track down Ganz and Billy Bear. As it turns out, Ganz is after half a million dollars that Reggie has stashed away, making Reggie as desperate to help Jack as Jack is for Reggie's assistance. Meanwhile, Jack is fighting with his girlfriend (Annette O'Toole,) and is constantly at odds with his Captain (Frank McRae,) who can't stand him. In many ways, 48 Hrs. is standard buddy cop fare, although it is often considered the first in the genre. Jack and Reggie dislike each other at first, going so far as to get into a dirty, knock down, drag out fist fight with each other. Naturally, they begin to respect and trust each other as they work together for the common good. This is a good one. The action is realistically violent, and the laughs are plentiful. It was Eddie Murphy's motion picture debut, and he didn't disappoint. He and Nolte had fantastic chemistry and worked well together. James Horner composed the film's score, and the soundtrack features original songs by The Bus Boys, whose energetic tunes make the movie just that much more fun. (Info verified by Wikipedia)