Martin Brest
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Pineapple Express (2008)
Directed by David Gordon Green
influenced by Midnight Run (1988)
Themes Plot
The only thing I can think to compare Pineapple Express to is Midnight Run, which similarly mixed action and comedy in an unconventional but symbiotic manner.
The dumb, bantering hitman and doublecrossing friends recall Midnight Run.
In a sense, this harkens back to the "buddy flicks" so rampant in the 1980s, odd-couple outings like 48 HRS. and Midnight Run (no wonder iconic '80s band Huey Lewis and the News was tapped to belt out the closing-credits title song).
In the end, the film is solid entertainment in the Midnight Run vein.
It seems appropriate subject matter for a comedy that is itself a unique blend of action and comedy, the kind of buddy movie that they made a lot more of in the '80s (Midnight Run, 48 Hours, etc.), but that has kind of fallen out of style now that the Farrelly brothers and Will Ferrell have replaced dark humor with the gross-out variety in the "adult comedy" genre.
Despite its rusty mechanics and hodgepodge of tones, Pineapple Express convincingly imitates the mode of Midnight Run: on-the-run odd-couple comedy with gunplay and car chases.
Bad Boys for Life (2020)
Directed by Bilall Fallah
influenced by Beverly Hills Cop (1984)
Characters
They’re also in charge of Beverly Hills Cop ’s resurrection.
It’s hard to imagine these days how thoroughly synonymous with Hollywood the producers Don Simpson (now deceased) and Jerry Bruckheimer were in the eighties and nineties, how they bestrode the town like colossi, how lavish were their offices, how they churned out hit after hit – Flashdance, the Beverly Hills Cop films, Top Gun, shiny-loud constructions that went Vroom! and Sizzle! and Blam-Blam-Blam!
Thanks to countless showings on cable TV over the past two decades, Lowery and Burnett have evolved into a beloved duo in the vein of Lethal Weapon’s Murtaugh and Riggs or the trio of Foley, Taggart, and Rosewood in the first two Beverly Hills Cop films.
I can’t deny that fans of Transformers , Beverly Hills Cop , and/or the first two Bad Boys movies (notice the age-range span there), will probably enjoy this film.
Martin Lawrence, in the original “Bad Boys,” shares the rarified air of Eddie Murphy in “Beverly Hills Cop”.
Joe Pantoliano makes a welcomed return as Pepto-Bismol-swigging Captain Howard, a still capable riff on all of those screaming captains from Beverly Hills Cop movies.
Writer-director Martin Brest somehow thought combining the most incongruous elements of "Chasing Amy," "Rain Man" and "Pulp Fiction" was a good idea.
It was probably pitched to studio executives as "Prizzi's Honor" meets "Rain Man," but it has none of the cutting wit of the former and none of the redeeming conviction of the latter.
Having the simple advantage of being a dialogue-dependent film in a summer ocean of monosyllabitis, Gigli would simply be mild potato au gratin if it weren't for the patronizing Rain Man setup and mercenary zeal for jokes made at the expense of the mentally handicapped.
You could think of the film as "Ford Fairlane" meets "Rain Man" meets "Chasing Amy," but that would only scratch the surface.
For the next 40 minutes or so, Gigli and Ricki swap stale banter as the actors feign animosity and Bartha sneaks off with the movie by channeling Dustin Hoffman's "Rain Man" shtick.
Written and directed by Martin Brest, whose last outing was the equally unbearable "Meet Joe Black," the romance revolves around these two opposing personalities being assigned to keep an eye on each other as they kidnap the mentally disabled brother of a district attorney and threaten harm to the kid (Justin Bartha, whose performance is straight out of a community theater rendition of "Rain Man") if charges aren't dropped against their boss's capo.
Produced by Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer ("Beverly Hills Cop," "Top Gun"), "Bad Boys" is, not surprisingly, a high-concept cops-and-robbers film with a role-reversal plot that could, if necessary, be made to fit on the head of a pin.
Un plan « machiavélique » qui débuta en 1995 avec le retour du cinéaste Tony Scott (Crimson Tide), responsable de certains des plus gros succès du duo au cours de la décennie précédente, dont Top Gun et Beverly Hills Cop 2, mais aussi avec l’embauche d’un nouveau poulain qui figurait déjà parmi les réalisateurs les plus en vue du monde de la publicité et du vidéoclip aux États-Unis : Michael Bay.
People who have Beverly Hills Cop and Miami Vice encoded in their nervous systems and are looking for restimulation may be amused by this formulaic sass machine and police procedural, but I was writhing in my seat.
It should come as no surprise that this endless spectacle of tired comedy routines and overblown action fare was produced by Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer, action-meisters of such '80s blockbusters as "Beverly Hills Cop" and "Top Gun."
The Heat (2013)
Directed by Paul Feig
influenced by Beverly Hills Cop (1984), Midnight Run (1988)
Plot Themes
If you want to look for a movie that is similar in tone to “The Heat,” I would harken back to “Beverly Hills Cop” as it is also hilariously profane and uses violence to ground the movie and raise the stakes, but not so much that it takes you out of the movie.
More a female-bonding “Beverly Hills Cop” transplanted to Boston than another raunchy and raucous “Bridesmaids,” “The Heat” is funny and entertaining enough to make fans of Melissa ?McCarthy (“Bridesmaids”) and Academy Award winner Sandra Bullock (“The Blind Side”) happy.
The legacy is a long one: "Beverly Hills Cop," "Tango & Cash," "Starsky & Hutch," "48 Hrs.," "Men in Black," "Turner & Hooch," "Miami Vice."
In fact, it follows the same basic formula of movies like “Beverly Hills Cop” and “Rush Hour.”
It’s no Beverly Hills Cop, but The Heat does spend a decent amount of time with its cops ‘n robbers plot — bizarre, because it’s such a nothing story.
“The Heat” is never “Beverly Hills Cop” with women.
Like Martin Brest’s “Midnight Run” (1988), a film that is a legend among comic actors, “Due Date” is not afraid to let you see alpha-male, hot-tempered Peter verbally abuse the delusional, vain and at times hilariously effete Ethan.
Do you think, as in "Midnight Run" and "Planes, Trains & Automobiles," the guys might, oh, I dunno, get to like each other over the course of the journey?
Soon, you can't wait for them to get to L.A. Road pictures such as Midnight Run worked well because the characters were so much fun to spend time with, no matter where the road took them.
With Due Date, director Todd Phillips takes the "mismatched travelers/road movie" genre -- which also includes Planes, Trains & Automobiles (1987), Midnight Run (1988), The Bucket List (2007), Get Him to the Greek , and many others -- and does nothing much with it.
The problem with Due Date is that these moments are far too few, with most being a variation on situations from superior road movies like PTA and Midnight Run .
An irascible bully who proves to have a heart of gold, Pacino's character seems manufactured by a computer programmed with box-office grosses, and it's disheartening to find a movie that professes to take a stand on behalf of personal integrity ripping off Chaplin's theme song from City Lights without credit to generate some of its pathos.
Harold Faltermeyer, who also created the iconic theme music for Beverly Hills Cop, returns as the composer for Top Gun: Maverick.
Top Gun: Maverick , though it may draw on memories of unrivalled American hegemony, is really harking back to the era of star-led genre filmmaking that started in the mid-1980s, with Beverly Hills Cop and Top Gun , gathered pace with Die Hard and ended around 2000, the last time the year’s biggest film wasn’t animated, computer-generated or fantastical.
Central Intelligence (2016)
Directed by Rawson Marshall Thurber
influenced by Midnight Run (1988), Beverly Hills Cop (1984)
Plot Themes
I was disappointed.This fun buddy movie is something like a semi-slapstick Midnight Run starring Abbot and Costello.
If you recall, Lethal Weapon, Rush Hour, Bad Boys, and Beverly Hills Cop had genuine thrills in them as well as high-calibre, consistent jokes.
The first "Bad Boys" was modest by comparison, a cliched-but-energetic riff on "Beverly Hills Cop" and "Lethal Weapon."
Producer Jerry Bruckheimer drafted the blueprint for this sort of thing with Beverly Hills Cop (1984) and struck pay dirt again with Bad Boys (1995); this sequel, directed by right-hand man Michael Bay, is as sour and jaded as they come.
Having directed nearly every other male action star (and a slew of top-billed non-stars) in The Expendables 3, Patrick Hughes adds Ryan Reynolds and Samuel L. Jackson to his stable in The Hitman's Bodyguard, an action-comedy that takes the Midnight Run template to The Hague.
It's not based on any pre-existing source material (aside from clear Midnight Run-esque premise), and it's actually great to see an original film get made in the summer that has been mostly defined by franchises, sequels, prequels, and reboots.
Viewers only need to think back to Midnight Run for a better-executed example of mismatched bad guys on the run.
Stuck in a downward spiral ever since, Bryce has a shot at career redemption if he can complete this “Midnight Run”-style mission, which he reluctantly accepts after he and Kincaid have made some obligatory attempts to destroy each other (acrimonious job history and all that).
Midnight Run really set the gold standard for this sort of thing, with Running Scared, Lethal Weapon, 48 Hrs. and a few others not far behind.
So off we go on this “Midnight Run” knockoff, and time and again the comedy is tone-deaf and tired.
Thereafter, "Meet Joe Black" takes a decidedly less cerebral tack than its predecessor, at times bearing a closer resemblance to both the recent "City of Angels" and John Carpenter's 1984 film "Starman."
When the brothers analyze a music video, or a teen keyboardist proves his chops by launching into Harold Faltermeyer’s synth-pop theme from “Beverly Hills Cop,” you know Carney has sharp memories of the era.
Venom: Let There Be Carnage (2021)
Directed by Andy Serkis
influenced by Beverly Hills Cop (1984)
Characters
The actor — who spends much of the film dressed in Eddie Murphy’s outfit from Beverly Hills Cop for reasons unclear beyond the first name his character and the comedian have in common — shares a story credit with writer Kelly Marcel.
The Intouchables (2011)
Directed by Éric Toledano
influenced by Beverly Hills Cop (1984), Scent of a Woman (1992)
Themes Plot
(Durpaire adds that if “The Intouchables” is offensive, so were the “Beverly Hills Cop” movies.)
The two generate such fun and good will in this Gallic " Driving Miss Daisy " (or " Trading Places ," " Scent of a Woman ," ad nauseam) that you can almost forgive the film's breezy racial stereotyping, cheap comedy and phony-baloney attitudes toward art, culture, class, and quadriplegia.
But it’s Day’s manic, ratty work as Dale that pushes the film the furthest in terms of flat-out comedy; while it’s not on the level of, say, Eddie Murphy in 48 Hours or Bronson Pynchot in Beverly Hills Cop , this more than anything is the film that will make Day a star.
…gamers as virgins who still live with their parents), references “Meet Joe Black” more explicitly than it does Microsoft or Metroid, and feels generally uncomfortable with the fact that video games have gone mainstream — a fact that would seem to be affirmed by this movie’s very existence.
This is especially true of Tucker, who is essentially doing a caricature of Eddie Murphy in the "Beverly Hills Cop" movies, as he runs on at the mouth as he's wont to do and garners a few laughs from an arsenal of "it's a black thang" maneuvers.
Before you could say 48 Hours (or Beverly Hills Cop or Lethal Weapon...), Chan found himself paired with Chris Tucker in a stupidly sure-fire vehicle.
Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw (2019)
Directed by David Leitch
influenced by Midnight Run (1988)
Themes Characters Dialogue
Fans of buddy action flicks of the 80s and 90s, such as "Lethal Weapon," "Tango & Cash," "48 Hrs." and "Midnight Run" will be right at home here.
Hobbs and Shaw are more like a Midnight Run or Rush Hour dynamic where they’re constantly trying to shake each other to go solo, and whenever one gets the upper hand, the other has to one-up them.
No one was expecting Midnight Run level repartee from Hobbs and Shaw, but is it too much to ask for a bit more than the who-has-a-bigger-penis stuff we get here?
Curiously, Gluck makes this rom-com feel like an action movie with a frenetic ticking-clock plot where the characters run around to race against time, à la Run Lola Run, Speed, Midnight Run, etc.