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Kurosawa's Stray Dog is indicated in the stolen police gun, mainly this is a revision of In the Heat of the Night along the lines of Rush's Freebie and the Bean. Walter Hill's characteristically erudite structure has two racially mismatched duos, the prologue introduces the first with the escaped prisoner (James Remar), "a real animal" out for hidden loot and teamed with a Native bruiser (Sonny Landham). Their opposite numbers are the ursine copper (Nick Nolte) and the fugitive's former cohort (Eddie Murphy), the Black wiseass sprung from jail on a sham parole to aid the investigation. "I can see this is gonna be a long fucking night, convict." The Old West of San Francisco in the Eighties, complete with a rowdy saloon on Mission District, the sidekick borrows badge and pistol and saunters in to give rednecks a piece of his mind (cf. Cimber's The Black Six). Close as testicles, this twosome, one keeps pushing away his girlfriend (Annette O'Toole) and the other keeps hitting on every girl in sight, "bullshit and experience" make for a reliable formula. The French Connection is deftly tweaked, the subway station chase is later continued with car and bus like Roman chariots amid a galaxy of sparks. Macho bluff, bellicose slurs and sexist jibes, the comedy of Nolte's parched growl and Murphy's kinetic patter at the center of a profane whirlwind. (At the police headquarters, Hill stages an early scene with multiple participants and lickety-split dialogue in one unbroken take like a vivid memory of His Girl Friday.) Numbers by The BusBoys give a foretaste of Streets of Fire, the Chinatown climax is sculpted with steam and neon. "You know how to send a guy out with a real great attitude." Carpenter's They Live is a valuable dilation. With Frank McRae, David Patrick Kelly, Brion James, Kerry Sherman, Jonathan Banks, James Keane, Margot Rose, and Denise Crosby.
--- Fernando F. Croce |