"The Heat's Back On!"
"Axel Foley's back...where he doesn't belong!"

The basic story involves some big time robbers knocking over stores in Beverly Hills. Once again a Detroit cop, Axel Foley (Eddie Murphy), must help out the locals with the case. The city of Beverly Hills is being terrorized by the so-called Alphabet Bandit, Maxwell Dent (Jürgen Prochnow) who leaves a cryptic coded letter using the alphabet, after his well - trained band, led by a very tall blond woman, Karla Fry (Brigitte Nielsen), swarm various businesses / places, and take what they want with a three minute time limit.

The letter supposedly gave clues as to where the next robbery will be, and who was behind it. Head Cop Andrew Bogamille, (Ronny Cox), now an old friend of Axel's, is gunned down & seriously wounded, because he found out some clues. Axel comes back "deep, deep undercover" to help officer Billy Rosewood (Judge Reinhold) and John Taggart (John Ashton), do a covert investigation to find the Alphabet Bandit and his gang of bad guys and bad gal, hopefully without being fired by their respective chiefs. Axel's Police Chief, Inspector Todd (Gilbert Hill) thinks Axel is undercover, pursuing his credit card bust, and Reinhold and Ashton were assigned to traffic duty, one step from losing their jobs, due to their new, verbally abusive Chief of Police, Harold Lutz (Allen Garfield), just looking for an excuse to fire them.

A favorite action scene is the opening 3 minute robbery of the jewelry store. Another is the attempted robbery of the Bank Depository, that is foiled by our three favorite cops on the case.

Murphy is once again on target as the smart mouthed Detroit cop. He's in fine form, equally good with a joke and a gun. Many funny moments add balance and enjoyment to this "fast and furious" film. His years with "Saturday Night Live" honed his comedy line delivery to perfection. That Eddie is also credible in the action scenes is to his credit.

One favorite, humorous scene takes place between Nielsen and Murphy. As she shoots at a firing range, Murphy checks out her long beautiful legs. With strictly professional interest, Murphy inquires, "How long does it take to shave those legs?

Another great, great scene is with comedian Gilbert Gottfied as the accountant, Sidney Bernstein, which is a perfectly directed, written and acted scene.

The "Beverly Hills Cop" series of movies, mixing humor and action, laying the ground work for such action comedy vehicles as the "Lethal Weapon" and "Die Hard" series of films. All these films owe a debt of gratitude to old television series like "The Man from UNCLE" and "I Spy" which deftly mixed action and humor over thirty years ago.