If you're of a certain age, there's nothing you can do: you have to accept that Crazy Frog will live in a hollowed-out space in your brain until the day you die. That blue-grey Swedish CG nuisance that was everywhere, especially ringtones, born of terrible energies, was ubiquitous sometime back in 2005. The aural plague was thanks entirely to an earworm track that worked far better in its original state in 1984's Beverly Hills Cop. "Axel F" by Harold Faltermeyer plays intermittently throughout the film and is the stuff of instant cranial embedding. Even in its original context, the song gets annoying by the third or fourth spin, but everyone involved in Beverly Hills Cop's production must've known what sort of bottled lightning they were working with.

None of this is to say that "Axel F" is the sort of song that could drum up an audience through catchiness alone, even if it bled into real-world club spaces -- it's not even a highlight. The primary and singular draw for Beverly Hills Cop is Eddie Murphy, coming hot off the neo-noir48 Hours (1982) and the absurdly brilliant Trading Places (1983), with a blindingly bright career shining ahead of him. Street-savvy, smartass smart, and somehow both the straight man and funny man wrapped in one package, Murphy put asses in seats.

This was back when Eddie Murphy was everywhere. In the 80s, he was a staple on television as an SNL cast member. He sold out comedy tours that became their own theatrical successes, and he even released a handful of albums to varying critical and public reception. Murphy was that rare pop cultural figure whose career was worth paying attention to. His comedic chops, present from the first, were widely acclaimed for lyrical invective, observational astuteness, and wily wit. In short, few people are capable of what Eddie Murphy accomplished in such a brief span, and even fewer have done so with as much style. Then, the '90s happened, and the timeline gets spotty. When exactly did Eddie Murphy go from being the Eddie Murphy to being the actor in Meet Dave (2008), Imagine That (2009), and A Thousand Words (2012)?

Beverly Hills Cop. They don't make 'em like that anymore. Directed by Martin Brest -- who would later direct Midnight Run (1988) and eventually end his career unceremoniously with Gigli (2003) -- has never been better, and knows to let Murphy run the show as the emcee of a movie that, without him, wouldn't be worth the price of a DVD double-feature of Norbit (2007) and Coming 2 America (2021) -- the sequel, that is.

Axel Foley is Among the Greatest Roles Eddie Murphy Has Played

By serving as the trickster with a tender heart and razor-sharp mind, Foley is one of the great on-screen heroes

Beverly Hills Cop begins in Detroit, Michigan, where we meet Detective Axel Foley (Murphy). From the jump, we know this guy does things his way, the sort of guy who gives precedence to why movie lieutenants are typically losing their heads over insubordination. Despite some city damage and a bust gone...bust, Foley is a good cop and an even better friend.

After being chewed out, Foley arrives home to find his old friend Mikey Tandino (James Russo) sitting at the kitchen table. Out for good behavior from a stint in the clink, Mikey has come into some German bearer bonds through dubious means. The less Foley knows, the better. The two go out for a night of pool and catch up, but it's not long before the bonds' source becomes apparent. Mikey is killed brutally, with a gunshot to the back of the head, and Foley wants justice.

As is often the case in situations like this -- for movies tell us so -- Foley cannot take on the case himself due to emotional proximity to the victim, so he uses impromptu vacation time to conduct his own investigation, away from the prying eyes of DPD. Soon, Foley finds himself in casutically bright Beverly Hills, California, where he quickly finds a way to finagle himself a temporary residence in an upscale property undergoing renovation. This is the first of many clever tactics Foley employs to get his way and put one over on any sucker he comes across. Foley is nothing if not incredibly brazen, a "wascally wabbit" to everyone else's fuddy-duddy Elmer Fudd. If he weren't so charming, then Beverly Hills Cop would resemble any number of neo-noirs that solely seem to be about beating up (emotionally and physically) the protagonist until eventually the credits roll (take your pick).

But Eddie Murphy isn't a dour performer by any means, nor does his character tolerate any infringements against him. He pushes, gets pushed, pushes back, and pushes harder until he gets the desired results. Murphy, as Foley -- though the latter is evidently a medley of improv and idiosyncrasy that is inextricable from the former -- exudes a natural indreculousness. Not just toward those who hinder his investigation but also skepticism toward the plot itself, as though he's keenly aware of the wire framework around him and the goings-on behind the camera. In Beverly Hills Cop, we're blessed to witness a performer who hams for the invisible audience and has his best takes highlighted in a remarkable assemblage that we can credit to Brest and the editors, Arthur Coburn and Billy Weber.

By the time Foley has sniffed out the plot orchestrated by one Victor Maitland (Steven Berkoff), art-dealer-cum-drug-smuggler, we've seen a banana used to disable a vehicle, a strip club robbery stopped with improvisatory slickness, and many more scenes that justify Beverly Hills Cop as a certified classic. It's that rare film whose tone is solely its own. Even considering the two sequels -- with the fourth entry on the way, Netflix's Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F -- there's nothing like the attention-seeking audacity of Foley's first film foray. Even with Tony Scott at the helm (whose entry is worth following up on for a near-metallic sheen and doubling down in every area of the film) or the less desirous John Landis (skip the third one altogether), the pure pleasure to the experience of throwing on the 1984 film for the first time is unmatched.

Beverly Hills Cop (1984) Remains the Best Singular Showcase of What Eddie Murphy Can Do In a Tired Format

The neo-noir framework that surrounds Axel Foley (Murphy) is enlivened by a character who eschews expectations

It's not hard to imagine a much blander version of the film, one that focuses on the buddy cop dynamic between the older Sergeant John Taggart (John Ashton) and the fresh-faced Detective Billy Rosewood (Judge Reinhold), whose different approaches to criminality and whose general mindsets offer enough friction to make something at least mildly enjoyable. But here we have the third man in Foley, building a triumvirate of comedy that pits a surprise contender against the wills of the other two. Between the three of them and Foley's ongoing encouragement, there's something lovely and delicate at the heart of Beverly Hills Cop.

Murphy delivers an astounding performance not just for his ability to cut through the scenery like a chainsaw but also for those moments when he drops the act and seems to lay his soul bare, cutting to the chase and commanding the tone of the room around him -- he sets the register. At its core, Beverly Hills Cop is about justice, a tale as old as crime, and with it comes the necessary weight that often seems to come out best from very funny people.

Beverly Hills Cop is currently available to stream on Netflix. The service will release Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F on Wednesday, July 3rd.

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