A desperate return

ANOTHER 48 HRS.

Reviewed By Jerry Saravia

Desperation and greed mark Walter Hill's "Another 48 HRS." It is the kind of movie that assumes glass breakage, gunshots, loud music and truly thumpingly and obscenely amplified punches are the equivalent of entertainment. For some they may be. For others, beware.

"Another 48 HRS." is one of several sequels released in the summer of 1990. That summer also featured "Gremlins 2," "The Two Jakes," "The Exorcist III," among others. Not the greatest company, though Nicholson and writer Robert Townshend at least attempted to make a different kind of sequel to "Chinatown." So then came the sequel to "48 HRS.," and it was assumed that it would be as funny as the original. Actually, it is more violent and nasty, and hardly funny. The film was made quickly and dispatched to theatres without a hint of what made the original tick.

For starters, Eddie Murphy looks like a carbon copy of himself, delivering his lines as the Armani-suited Reggie Hammond with the attitude of a robot. He only has a few choice moments, particularly when talking to the phone to his old buddies. It is also nice to hear his trademark laugh, but there is no pizazz, no energy in his performance. Even a recap of the bar sequence from the original (which is what made Eddie a star) feels perfunctory and delivers on the payoff of a gunshot as a punchline, not a joke.

Nick Nolte returns as the cop Cates but he seems exhausted by the proceedings, which makes no sense since his character is no longer the alcoholic he was in the original. He hardly brings any integrity to the movie - shoot one villain, beat up Reggie, shoot another, get hit with a basketball, and so on. His scenes with Murphy have no consequence or action or sense of urgency. They seem to return for the sake of returning for a sequel, not for a new original story.

Cold-hearted and wholly unbelievable from start to finish, not to mention having one of the most surprisingly crude endings in eons, and featuring several anonymous villains (including a funny cameo by Bernie Casey), "Another 48 HRS." does have some merits. Kinetic action-director Walter Hill stages moments of brutal, gory action with verve - his images move with crispness and detail. And even if they are a few choice moments, Eddie Murphy at least makes me smile when I hear his rendition of Sting's "Roxanne." Of course, we heard this same rendition in the original, so this sequel basically smacks of replicated desperation.