A FAN’S NOTES

This Year’s Model

Last year the Rolling Stones released their first album of original material (a brief, sparse and astonishingly poignant epitaph/tribute excepted) in … I don’t know in how many years now – somebody else can do the math. Hackney Diamonds was a sort of K-Tel compilation pastiche: The Sounds of the 70’s! The record had no business being as good as it is. Times, tastes and sensibilities have changed, but the Stones haven’t. The business school lesson here is never intractably pivot from your core expertise, don’t dismiss what made you successful in the first place.

(Should you be prompted to delve into Hackney Diamonds, keep in mind that Mick and Keith are the same age as the President of the United States. Remember too that both their lifestyles were somewhat more excessive than Hunter Biden’s.)

This year’s Hackney Diamonds, that’s to say an improbably welcome return to form is Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F. It’s a Netflix exclusive, very different from the “straight to video” kiss of death. It’s the fourth installment in the series. Who knew there’d been a third? That Netflix is reaching back to the eighties for recycled original content, standard American filmmaking operational procedure these days, is another discussion. Axel F has no business being as entertainingly diverting as it is. You can guess the plot; my sense is that everyone involved decided to have fun with the formula (the dig at Beverly Hills Cop III in one scene is subtle but priceless) as opposed to just making the best of it.

The Eddie Murphy I remember imagined James Brown in a hot tub (“Water! Huh! Hot! Huh!”), relocated Mr Rogers’s neighbourhood to the ‘hood, and mused aloud what it might be like to sodomize Mr T. 48 Hours (Nick Nolte) and Trading Places (Dan Aykroyd, Jamie Lee Curtis) were movies worth paying for. When Murphy began reprising roles made famous by the likes of Rex Harrison and Jerry Lewis I looked away.

The track record of Saturday Night Live cast members in movies is dismal. “Spotty” is perhaps more diplomatic. A sketch becomes excruciating when stretched out to feature length. I once paid a dollar to see Wayne’s World in a repertory cinema and deeply regretted the waste of money. Trademark shticks are best buried in an ensemble cast or at least offset by a co-star with a different routine and maybe even one with genuine acting chops (see above). Still, the producers and the stars keep grinding out what they believe the fans want and we usually end up with what we deserve to be served.

Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F is a retread that doesn’t feel tired. Key members of the original cast (Bronson Pinchot!) return to share screen time with Murphy and that aspect gives the movie a refresher quality because I don’t imagine anybody alive has seen 1984’s Beverly Hills Cop recently – that’s the last time I saw it. Axel F is good enough for the cynic in me to suggest that its backers will view the film as a relaunch of a franchise now deemed worthy of being flogged to death.

I also understand that the Stones are planning another for early next year.  

Dispatches from the Crooked 9 has been your most unreliable, unbalanced and inaccurate alternative source of everything since 2013. My companion site www.megeoff.com is a little dusty, but up to date.