Another 48 Hrs. (1990)
★★½ — Another 48 Hrs. (1990)
Walter Hill returned to the pairing that had made 48 Hrs. (1982) a genuine phenomenon, reuniting with Eddie Murphy and Nick Nolte for this Paramount sequel after a run of films (Streets of Fire, Brewster's Millions, Crossroads) that had failed to match his late-1970s peak. By 1990, Murphy was one of the biggest stars on the planet, fresh off the Beverly Hills Cop films and Coming to America, which gave the production considerable commercial confidence and a reported $38 million budget. The film arrived at a curious moment for the buddy-cop genre, which had been thoroughly mainstreamed by the Lethal Weapon series, meaning what once felt fresh in 1982 now had a great deal of competition. The shoot took place largely in San Francisco, and the finished film is notably shorter and leaner than its predecessor.
Another 48 Hrs (1990) is s sequel that makes you appreciate the original all the more. A film that reunites Walter Hill with Nick Nolte and Eddie Murphy but somehow loses the alchemy that made the first outing crackle. Coming from a director whose filmography includes The Warriors, Southern Comfort, and the original 48 Hrs, this feels like a misfire: a by-the-numbers action-comedy that mistakes volume for wit and spectacle for substance. Eddie Murphy remains effortlessly charismatic, and there are flashes of the old magic in his banter with Nolte. The action sequences deliver kinetic energy. Car chases, shootouts, and an absurd amount of shattered glass in every bar fight (one wonders if the prop department bought shares in a glazier's union). But the dialogue rarely lands with the sharpness of the original; jokes feel recycled, the racial barbs lack the subversive edge that once gave the partnership its tension, and Nolte's Jack Cates has calcified into a cliché of the grizzled, rule-breaking cop, growling, scowling, and offering little beyond the silhouette of a character we once liked. The soundtrack has moments of cool, but it often feels mismatched to the on-screen chaos, a stylistic disconnect that mirrors the film's broader identity crisis. It wants to be gritty, it wants to be funny, it wants to be slick, but it never commits fully to any one tone. A disappointing outing from a director I deeply admire. Not without its moments, but ultimately a hollow echo of what came before.
Rating: ★★½ | Year: 1990 | Watched: 2026-04-01
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Related on Movies With Macca
More from Walter Hill: 48 Hrs. (1982) · The Driver (1978) · The Warriors (1979)
More with Eddie Murphy: Beverly Hills Cop (1984) · 48 Hrs. (1982) · Mulan (1998) · Shrek 2 (2004)
More from the 1990s: Lessons of Darkness (1992) · Shinjuku Boys (1995) · Blue (1993) · Cemetery Man (1994)
More thriller: Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) · Angst (1983) · The Long Walk (2025) · Punishment Park (1971)
More action: A Better Tomorrow (1986) · The General (1926) · Hand of Death (1976) · Daredevil (2003)
