hyped garbage

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

Scott Roper (Eddie Murphy) is the best hostage negotiator in the San Francisco Police Department. After rescuing hostages in a bank, he's given new partner Kevin McCall (Michael Rapaport) to train to take over. His recently broken up girlfriend Veronica Tate (Carmen Ejogo) is a newspaper reporter. His best friend Lieutenant Sam Baffert is investigating jewel thief Michael Korda (Michael Wincott) and is killed by him. Scott wants revenge but Captain Frank Solis is keeping him out of the investigation.Eddie Murphy is playing a loud-mouth police detective except he's not wisecracking funny like Axel Foley. He seems to have lost some of his comedic luster of his earlier work. Also Eddie is trying to go darker in this one. Michael Rapaport is basically playing the same kind of character but they don't have the best chemistry. The problem is that the script lacks intensity or sharpness. Eddie doesn't have quite the personality for this type of police drama either. The movie does have an extended car chase through the hills of SF which has some fun carnage.

For the first hour of this film all I could think of was how average it was, I even had an average review written in my head for it. However, there are certain scenes, thrills and aspects - e.g. the ending predicament that are actually pretty good and will throw you.Eddie Murphy plays a 'wisecracking' hostage negotiator, although tbh he's very much the 'serious' Eddie Murphy for most of the film. I prefer the fun Beverly Hills Cop guy, but there we go. There is a scene where he's talking about being in a thong and being seen by his mother's friends that is hilarious though. Plot-wise he basically gets on the wrong side of some nutter and his cousin and they conspire to make life hell for him and his English girlfriend. The female lead is a tad weak in this, and I must admit I've never ever heard of her (although I was 7 when this film came out - maybe she was big then) but she looked good - Carmen Ejogo she is.Michael Rapaport is in this as well, as an intelligent sniper who is paired up with Murphy. Now I thought, judging by the cover etc, this was gonna be a buddy cop movie but Rapaport (an actor I like) is underused really. Don't get me wrong he's in the film a fair bit but his character has next to no personality. All I learnt was he's polite, sharp, from the Swat team and is a sniper. That's it. The film could have been done without his character if they wanted to save whatever fee he commanded.Whoever plays Eddie Murphy and Carme Ejogo's dog is good in this though. Stellar, powerhouse performance reminded me of Hanks in The Green Mile or Orson Welles in Citizen Kane.So yeah, mixed bag really - there's hate for post-80s Murphy films sure, but this is one of the better ones. It's a solid watch (on netflix atm) and there's some good action and the bad guy is easy to hate, so there's a lot worse out there. I won't strongly recommend but I'll say it's worth a shot - you know what you're going to get.

I'm nor going to give any spoilers out, but this really was one of Eddie Murphy BEST roles! I only bought this one because of the two actors that I love are in it. Eddie & Michael Wincott. It really, for me was a Wincott buy. Being a woman I agree with the other member who said most women will find it boring. I'm not like most women who like film. I saw both Raider's and The Golden Child in the theaters 9-11 times. So that should tell you. I wish Murphy would do this type of quality again. Anyway, enough of my opinion. GOOD MOVIE!!! Fast paised, a few funny lines and. Murphy as well as Wincott was VERY strong. I love it when Wincott is a villain. He gives such a nasty SOB 'like' portrayal of the quintessential bad guy.

This is a "Die Hard" movie with Eddie Murphy in the role of Bruce Willis. That sounds like a joke and that's the problem. Is it an action movie? Comedy? Comedy about an action movie? It keeps veering from one to another like one of the cars in the car chases. Eddie Murphy is a lot of things but no Bruce Willis. And the movie is always on the brink of being a parody rather than a straight action movie. There are screaming, helpless females (this is a 90's movie...those types of women aren't seen in movies these days), car chases & crashes, only very few intentional laughs. It's an anachronism but not a bad way to pass the time. It's Die Hard with a Black man. And it's A' ight...