Because it’s Murphy, the scene is inherently funny, but Hammond isn’t messing around — he’s not trying to be adorable. Coming from a comedian we’d only known from late-night sketch comedy, it was a pretty remarkable performance. Sure, you laughed, but that wasn’t your first response. As Murphy put it later, the scene was transformational for how audiences saw Black characters — and saw the skinny kid from SNL. “My significance in film — and again I’m not going to be delusional — was that I’m the first Black actor to take charge in a white world on screen,” he said. “That’s why I became as popular as I became.” Sidney Poitier may have good reason to refute that assessment, but that iconic 48 Hrs. scene was huge for Murphy’s burgeoning film stardom.
Because 48 Hrs. was a hit, Hollywood started doing other buddy-cop movies. Everything from Running Scared to Lethal Weapon to Midnight Run borrowed Walter Hill’s template, but more often than not, the comedy took precedence over the action. Hill didn’t know why there couldn’t be both, which also explains why 48 Hrs. stands out. Its chase scenes and shootouts are actually really good, and there’s not the kind of tedious back-and-forth banter between the partners during them that we now get all the time in buddy-cop pictures. When Nolte and Murphy are doing action scenes, they’re just doing really good action scenes. There’s no time for snide asides when the bullets are flying. “I always thought if you went to see an action movie, (my movie) was very funny,” Hill said this year. “And if you went to see a comedy, there was an awful lot of action. So it was a mix of genres a bit, and obviously we had some gifted performances from Nick and Eddie.”
In 1990, the stars and Hill reunited for Another 48 Hrs., a perfect example of how sequels almost never recapture the original magic, even if you bring back all the original people. Murphy was too big of a star by that stage — he wasn’t going to sneak up on anyone the way he did in the 1982 film — and the chemistry just wasn’t the same. Not to mention, there was no moment as unexpectedly sweet as the one at the end of 48 Hrs. when, after going through hell, Cates kinda sorta apologizes to Hammond for the racist stuff he’d said. It would be too much to call that scene “moving” or “poignant” or “tender,” but there was a genuineness there that buddy-cop films have almost never touched since. In the wake of 48 Hrs., the jokes became the genre’s main staple. Hill’s classic has its share of laughs, but you might be surprised how serious and grounded it is most of the time — and how good it is because of that.