48 Hrs. - Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

48 Hrs. : Paramount Presents Edition



Movie:
Video:
Audio:
Extras: :
Final Score:


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Movie
48 Hrs. is part buddy cop movie, and part Eddie Murphy comedy, and ALL Walter Hill gritty. Even calling it a “buddy cop” movie is kind of an untruth due to the fact that Eddie Murphy’s character isn’t a cop. But whatever, it’s got that “cop n’ criminal team up” vibe that made movies like Midnight Run such a big success. Not only was it a good 1980s Walter Hill movie (his best decade) but it also is hailed as the very first movie that Eddie Murphy starred in. Back in 1982 (my birth year by chance) a 21 year old Eddie Murphy had become a bigger success than even Richard Pryor or Bill Cosby (though that may not be a bad thing considering what happened to Cosby) and the comedian was looking at jumping into film too. Boy did he, though. 48 Hrs. wasn’t his biggest and best film, but it was a solid one that launched him into super stardom overnight (in the film world, in the comedy world he was on every newspaper and talk show).

Albert Ganz (James Remar) is an escaped convict with a grudge against more than just cops. He’s out for a big score from his old partners in crime, and he’s going to go through everyone and anyone in order to get it. Turns out his old friends had half a million in cash hidden away, and only Luther (David Patrick Kelly) is out and free enough to find it. Taking Luther’s girl hostage, he and his new partner Billy Bear (Sonny Landham) hole up and wait for the money to become available through Luther. Turns out that detective Jack Cates and the San Francisco police department stumble across where he’s staying and botch the capture job, leaving Jack the only surviving member of the officers when all is said and done.

Furious and out for blood, Jack decides to pull a sideways move and pulls out one of Ganz’s old partner’s out of the clink to help him track down Ganz. Turns out that this partner, Reggie (Eddie Murphy) happens to be the guy who had the money in the first place, and finding out that Ganz is after said money is MORE than willing to help Jack capture his old partner before Ganz kills anyone else. That is if the oil and water due don’t end up killing each other before they capture Ganz either.

48 Hrs. is a solid action movie, but nothing really THAT special on it’s own. Lethal Weapon was doing a better job of the buddy cop genre, and the script for 48 Hrs. isn’t that great. It’s a decent plot, with solid action, but it completely rides on the shoulders of the two leads. Nick Nolte is great as the gruff and vicious cop (who would be out on his bum in today’s world of police scrutiny) and Eddie Murphy is hilarious as Reggie. He hasn’t completely fine tuned his comedic on screen personality just yet (which he would perfect in Beverly Hills Cop) and you can tell that he’s trying to figure out if he should play Reggie as slapstick, or serious with a mild comedic edge. James Remar is always great as a villain, and everyone is cheering for him to get what’s coming to him throughout the whole film. Again, solid movie, but the two leads really sell it. Remar is great back up, but sadly Annette O’Toole (o….m….g.. is she smoking back in the 80s) is heavily under utilized and maybe in the movie 10 minutes tops. Not a big complaint, but any movie with Annette O’Toole is worth watching.




Rating:

Rated R by the MPAA




Video:

As with all Paramount Presents films, 48 Hrs. has been remastered in 4K for the Blu-ray release. While I naturally would have loved to have seen this gritty little flick on 4K UHD, I’m super excited about the brand new master considering how AWFUL the original Blu-ray’s video encode was. I’m not talking about “meh, it could have been better”, I’m talking full on “ouch that physically hurts to watch” bad. The movie still rich with tons and tons of grain (Walter Hill during the 80s loved using VERY grainy film stock), and there’s just a lot more life to the film. Certain background shots are done out of focus on purpose, but holy cow does the film look so much better. Gone is the aliasing, the smearing, the crunchy grain levels. In it’s stead is a very natural looking 1980s film. Sure, there’s heavy grain, but it’s very organic looking, and outside of a few vertical lines that pop up now and again, the disc is free of any major print damage. Blacks are deep and inky with just a hint of milkiness to them, and colors just pop so much better with the new encode. Just watching the scene at the end where Ganz ambushes Jack and Reggie in the alley. It’s near unwatchable on the original disc, and you can actually SEE what’s going on in this new one. Not a perfect transfer, but very stinking close to it, and well worth replacing that aging Blu-ray that I never watched after buying considering how bad it looked.






Audio:

At first look it seems that Paramount has brought over the aging 5.1 Dolby TrueHD track from the 2011 Blu-ray, and I almost didn’t compare the two tracks to see and I’m glad I ended up doing so. This is NOT the same mix to my ears that we had 10 years ago. It’s the same Dolby TrueHD packaging, but some solid remixing has gone on. The mix is powerful and punchy, with lots of low end bass to accentuate the action. Dynamics are really wide and explosive, but I did notice that the center channel was recorded just a teensy bit low. Not enough for me to really complain, but I did notice that even though I have the center bumped 1.5 DB’s from flat, it felt like I wanted to punch up the volume by 2 DB’s. However, that puts the rest of the mix just a bit higher than I want, and I ended up turning it down. I had to do a solid compromise by bumping up 1 DB from where I would want it and I could the dialog just fine, and wasn’t blown over by the rest of the channels. I almost rated it a 4.5/5 but for that issue and the fact that the surrounds had some weird channel bleed to them. Several times during gunshots I could actually hear the gunshot from the mains bleeding into the surrounds. That phenomenon is present on the old Blu-ray as well, so I’m guessing it’s something baked into the track’s source material. Good mix and a solid improvement over the old disc.






Extras:

• NEW - Isolated Score
• New - Filmmaker Forus: Walter Hill on 48 Hrs.
• Theatrical Trailer
• New - Space Kid - Original 1966 Animated Short

Final Score: ​

48 Hrs. is a fun film that isn’t a perfect buddy cop movie, but a very good one. Eddie is just on the cusp of his explosion into film, and Nolte was top of his game back in 1982. It’s rough, gritty, fun, and pure awesome 80s cheese with a nice new transfer. Not only is the video AND the audio upgraded for this disc, but Paramount didn’t skimp on any extras either. Usually my one frustration with their Paramount Presents re-releases are that they add in several new extras, but then for some reason take some away. Luckily they’re all new ones this time except for the trailer, which was present on the old disc (and probably why there are non missing. That trailer was the ONLY extra on the 2011 disc). So new video, new audio, and several new extras makes me give this one a solid thumbs up, as it is totes mcgotes worth the upgrade.


Technical Specifications:

Starring: Nick Nolte, Eddie Murphy, James Remar, Sonny Landham, Annette O'Toole, David Patrick Kelly, Brion James
Directed by: Walter Hill
Written by: Roger Spottiswoode, Walter Hill, Larry Grosse
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 AVC
Audio: English: Dolby TrueHD 5.1, German, Japanese, Music DD 2.0
Subtitles: English, English SDH, French, German, Japanese
Studio: Paramount
Rated: R
Runtime: 97 Minutes
Blu-ray Release Date: July 6th 2021

Recommendation: Good Buy

 

[Travis Ballstadt]

I was like 10 when this came out. My dad took us to it in the theater (benefits of divorced parents). We had no business seeing this, but 10yo me was excited for boobies. I don't know that I've seen it since, perhaps time for a revisit.

 

[Epoxy1]

I'd forgotten that Denise Crosby was in this film (Tasha Yar from Star Trek: TNG)....she shows her boobies in this film

 

[Michael Scott]

Yeah. She was in it for a few brief moments.

 

[Epoxy1]

Yeah. She was in it for a few brief moments.

That's what the pause button is for