Beverly Hills Cop review

 Number 996 on the top 1000 films of all time is the buddy cop action drama 'Beverly Hills Cop.'

Axel Foley (Eddie Murphy) is a street-smart Detroit cop whose childhood best friend is mysteriously killed. Aiming to uncover the mystery, Foley travels to Beverly Hills where he comes up against formidable art gallery owner Victor Maitland (Steven Berkoff.)

Eddie Murphy was a great comedy actor. He really carried this film and made it something more than your average buddy cop film. He easily displayed his versatility through his physical and verbal comedy. Axel Foley was a likeable and charismatic protagonist. A smart-talking cop is hardly a new trope, but Murphy kept the role nice and fresh. This was a fun and a light-hearted watch.

But Eddie Murphy wasn't the only actor in this, as the rest of the cast were also great. While in Beverly Hills, he receives help from police detective Billy (Judge Reinhold) and police sergeant John Taggart (John Ashton.) These two actors worked well together helping to provide a lot of the film's humour, but also a lot of heart. Initially, they begin as adversaries of Axel, with instructions from their superiors to keep him out of the way, but eventually they become allies. Both of them receive strict dressing-downs from their lieutenant, but this doesn't stop them from doing the right thing.

And Steven Berkoff as the villainous Victor Maitland also shone. He was very convincing as the villain. As I guess would be the standard of the buddy cop films of the time, this was definitely a bit of a boy's film. Consequently some of the female characters like Jenny (Lisa Eilbacher) - another old friend of Axel's - felt very short-changed.

Finally, we have to mention the film's brilliant soundtrack. Populated with the best of eighties music, it deservingly won the Grammy for best score. Of course, it also featured the Axel F song itself which went onto become one of the most annoyingly catchy songs of the 2000's.

This film appears very far down on the list. It was definitely good for what it was - a heartfelt, but very funny buddy cop drama with a great score, but I can understand why it was so low-placed. Beverly Hills Cop might have laid the groundwork, but I think it's been surpassed by many other films.

End of Watch review

 Number 633 on the top 1000 films of all time is the crime drama 'End of Watch.'

Brian Taylor (Jake Gyllenhaal) and Mike Zavala (Michael Pena) are best friends and LAPD officers. Shot documentary style, the film follows their relationship as they stumble upon a massive drug-running and people trafficking organisation and soon become targets of the Sinaloa Cartel.

Since starting this challenge, I've watched my fair share of cop dramas from Crash to Training Day. And they're often felt unrealistic. Either they've been over-the-top or too understated. But End of Watch had a lovely authenticity flowing through it. Part of that was down to its cinematography.

As previously stated, this was shot as a documentary. This is worked into the story. Brian is doing a film class and so he's filming all his police work on a hand-held camcorder. What he misses is picked up by dashcam and bodycam footage. Some critics maligned this as being unnecessary and confusing. Yes, at times, especially during the gunfights, it did become chaotic. But that's exactly what it would be like in real life. And the camera work adds another layer of realism. It shows these cops at their most relaxed, there is no fake facade or veneer. These are your police, like them or not. 

Rather than being unnecessary, it made everything feel so much more real. What I will concede is that it was strange seeing the Mexican gangbangers film themselves with camcorders too. Surely, they're smart enough to realise that they're incriminating themselves. This didn't make any sense.

Another reason End of Watch felt so real was because of the chemistry of the two leads - Gyllenhaal and Pena. Reportedly, the two didn't connect at first, but over time they became good friends. And this came across in the final project. A lot of the banter between them was completely improvised making their relationship all the more genuine. You got a real sense of the camaraderie that exists within the police force.

If there was anything I didn't like, it was the ending. *Spoiler alert* The cartel tracks down Taylor and Zavala - shooting both of them. Taylor survives and Zavala doesn't.  It would have been better if this was the other way around. Taylor is reckless and impulsive, often dragging his friend into danger - he's the one who initially incurs the cartel's wrath. It would make sense that his rashness would get him killed. But then again, it's all too common for the more rational characters like Zavala to die because of the impulsiveness of people like Taylor.

Granted, the film is a little cheesy in places - I could have done without Taylor's opening monologue, where he espouses about what it means to be a police officer. However, I do think that this type of cultural identity definitely exists within the LAPD.

This is a gritty police drama that neither exaggerates what being a police officer is like nor does it romanticise it. Rather it creates an authentic reality that lets the viewer make up their own mind.

Abre Los Ojos review

 Number 446 on the top 1000 films of all time is the Spanish science-fiction thriller 'Abre Los Ojos,' (Open your Eyes.)

Cesar (Eduardo Noreiga) is a young man who has it all: good looks, money and a loyal best friend called Pelayo (Feliz Martinez.) He also has the affection of the attractive young woman Sofia (Penelope Cruz.) This fuels the anger of Cesar's jealous ex-lover Nuria (Najwa Nimri.) When a terrible accident leaves Cesar scarred and deformed, his life begins spiralling out of control. This leads to him uncovering a greater conspiracy.

Although science-fiction films are rotted in the real, their plots can lend themselves to the fantastical, and, at times, the unbelievable. To some extent, this would apply to Abre Los Ojos. At the end of the film all our questions are answered, but the answers did leave me raising my eyebrows. But let's backtrack a little. Cesar is an attractive playboy, but he is involved in a car crash that leaves his face deeply scarred. Forced to wear a mash, he quickly becomes a social outcast. The only thing that keeps him tethered to sanity is Sofia. But when Sofia vanishes with Nuria claiming to be her, Cesar begins to lose his mind. He tries to tell everybody the truth, but nobody believes him. All this is crosscut with him in a psychiatric institution telling his story to a shrink.

It's revealed that Cesar paid for his body to be cryogenically frozen with a cryonic company called Life Extension. Afterwards he kills himself. But Life Extension has the ability to preserve the mind in a virtual reality that is created from their client's own lives. However, this film was made in 1997. How advanced was virtual reality back then? Would it be capable of sustaining a whole virtual world? If this was the modern day, when VR headsets are a dime-a-dozen and the metaverse is looming overhead, I would find this easier to believe, but not the nineties.

Despite the spurious premise, this was a watchable film. The time-jumping narrative leaves plenty of clues to keep us interested, but it is never so mysterious that it's frustrating. There are questions to be answered in both the past and the present, and I enjoyed figuring them out at the same time as Cesar.

And Cesar is such a tragic character. You could argue that it can be difficult to feel sorry for a wealthy playboy, but he is sympathetic. He is a man who goes from everything to nothing. His jealous ex-lover crashes the car they're in, which is the accident that horrifically scars his face. He is forced to wear a mask turning him into a Frankinsteinean monster. Soon his personality becomes monstrous as he turns all his friends against him. But Noreiga played whim with just enough humanity to not make him a self-pitying mess. And Najwa Nimri was very good as his scorned ex-lover.

If there was something I would mark the film down for it would be the god-awful CGI in the during scene, but that is only a minor niggle. All in all, this was an enjoyable film. I would recommend opening your eyes and watching it.