Another 48 Hrs. is a 1990 buddy cop film and sequel to 48 Hrs., once again directed by Walter Hill and starring Nick Nolte and Eddie Murphy.
In the years after the original film, Inspector Jack Cates (Nolte) is hunting down a notorious drug dealer known as the Iceman, while Reggie Hammond (Murphy) has just been released from prison. Unfortunately, Jack discovers that the Iceman has placed a price on Reggie's head. Now, the two must team up again to take down the Iceman, while also evading Max Ganz's vengeful and equally deranged brother Cherry Ganz (Andrew Divoff).
Another 48 Hrs. has examples of:
- Actor Allusion: While Reggie is riding on the bus after leaving prison, he sings James Brown songs. When Eddie Murphy was a cast member of Saturday Night Live, he portrayed James Brown in a number of skits.
- All There in the Script: The original script revealed some interesting details that didn't make it into the final film:
- Jack being in a new relationship with a female cop, who later says she was willing to plant a gun at the racetrack to clear his name.
- Reggie buying a gun on the street, which he would have carried throughout the film.
- Jack's new Cadillac would have suffered the same fate as Reggie's Porsche. This prompted Reggie to make a joke about where Jack got the car alarms installed.
- Artifact Title: In the original, Reggie was on a 48-hour prison furlough. In this film, there is no time limit to his partnership with Jack, yet "48 Hours" is still in the title.
- Avenging the Villain: Cherry Ganz, the younger brother of the first film's Big Bad, wants to hunt down Jack Cates to avenge his brother's death in the previous film.
- Bar Brawl: Jack ends up in one when he meets a guy he arrested a couple of years back:Jack: I don't want to get in a bar fight. People are always gettin' in bar fights. It's such a damn cliché. You hear about it all the time, and you see it in the motion pictures, people are gettin' hit in the head with beer bottles, and furniture, and— [breaks bottle over a man's head]
- Big Bad Friend: Jack's fellow officers are revealed to be the main villains.
- Big "NO!": Cherry has this reaction when he sees Jack alive at the King Mei Hotel.
- Brick Joke: Reggie throws a basketball in Jack's face and punches him when Jack withholds Reggie's money to press him into working another case.
- Two and a half hours of runtime later, Jack suddenly hauls off and sucker-punches Reggie:Reggie: Yo, man, what was that for?!"
Jack: That was for the basketball! Now we're even! - Then about an hour later:Reggie: Which shoulder did you get shot in, left or right?
Jack: Oh, it's my left, it hurts like hell. Doctor says it's bruised all the way down to the bone.
Reggie: To the bone?
Jack: Yeah.
Reggie: That's a deep bruise.
Jack: Yeah...
[Reggie sucker-punches him in the shoulder, and Jack doubles over in pain.]
Jack: UGH, GOD!
Reggie: Now we're even, motherfucker!
- Two and a half hours of runtime later, Jack suddenly hauls off and sucker-punches Reggie:
- Bulletproof Vest: Jack wears one from time to time.
- Call-Back: When Reggie is thrown into solitary for punching Jack, he puts on his headphones, turns on his Walkman, and sings "Roxanne" by The Police, just as he was introduced in the first film.
- Crazy-Prepared: Thanks to losing his sidearm in the first film, Jack now keeps a spare revolver in his car.
- Dirty Cop: Jack's buddies Frank and Ben from the previous film are revealed to be drug dealers.
- Friendship Moment: At the end, Reggie (still groaning in pain from the bullet wound in his shoulder), commiserates with Jack:Reggie: I'm sorry you had to knock your friend, man.
Jack: Aw, he wasn't my friend. You're my friend. - Hero Insurance: Reggie shoots an unarmed bar patron in the leg, right in front of a police officer (Jack), and gets away with it.
- Hollywood Silencer: Used when Price is shot.
- Human Shield: A bad guy holds Reggie as a human shield. Jack gets him by shooting him through Reggie.
- Hypocrisy Callout: Jack doesn't believe Reggie's story that he was framed for robbing the prison payroll, which is why he got an extra five years tacked onto his sentence. Reggie points out that Jack is in hot water for shooting a supposedly unarmed man, since they couldn't find any gun at the scene.Jack: That's different.
Reggie: How is that different?
Jack: I'm a cop, you're a crook.
Reggie: Oh, get the fuck out of here! Just because I'm a convict, everything out of my mouth is a goddamn lie?!
Jack: That's right.
Reggie: So it's just "screw Reggie Hammond."
Jack: That's right! - Internal Affairs: Blake Wilson, who is investigating Jack.
- Karma Houdini Warranty: Ben, who appears in the first film as one of Jack's work buddies, yet had been a Dirty Cop all along, gets the Just Desserts that he did not in the first film.
- Mistaken for Bluff: When Jack gets jumped in a bar and pulled into a bar fight, Reggie borrows the bartender's gun, shoots a warning shot at the ceiling to stop the fight, and threatens to shoot anyone who attacks Jack again. One of the thugs from the fight tells Reggie that he thinks Reggie doesn't have the guts to actually shoot them. Reggie replies by aiming down and shooting the man in the leg, then asks the rest of the room if anyone else "wants a limp".
- Put Your Gun Down And Step Away: Reggie tells Jack, "Why don't you just shoot me yourself?" which Jack does (NOT in the head, though). Then Jack shoots the villain. The look on the villain's face in between the two shots is priceless.
- Re-Cut: The original cut was 145 minutes long. It was cut by either Walter Hill or the Paramount studio down to 120 minutes, and a week before its summer theatrical release, an additional 25 minutes were cut out by Paramount, making a final theatrical version 95 minutes long. Frank McRae's reprisal of his role from the original 48 Hrs. was entirely cut except for a brief, uncredited shot of him in the background of one scene in the police station. Brion James, also returning from the original, saw his role severely cut down as well, to create a faster-paced action-comedy. Also removed was a scene partially shown in the theatrical trailer in which Jack explains to Reggie that he has a deadline to track down the Iceman; as such, there is no mention of '48 Hours' anywhere in the final film.
- Revenge Before Reason: The guy in the bar, already convicted of a felony, deliberately starts a fight with the police detective that sent him there. This action is unlikely to improve his situation in life.
- Schmuck Bait: Reggie meets up with Jack again after the latter sucker-punched him in the face. Reggie says he's going easy on Jack because he got shot earlier, and by the way, which shoulder was it?Jack: Oh, it's my left, it hurts like hell. Doctor says it's bruised all the way down to the bone.
Reggie: To the bone?
Jack: Yeah.
Reggie: That's a deep bruise.
Jack: Yeah...
[Reggie sucker-punches him in the shoulder, and Jack doubles over in pain.]
Jack: UGH, GOD! - Shoot the Hostage: Reggie is taken hostage, and with his characteristically big mouth, asks, "Shoot me, Jack!" Which Jack then does. He doesn't even bother aiming for the legs.
- Sound-Only Death: Subverted in one scene in which the Iceman kills Malcolm Price after Malcolm lets him in and shuts the door, offering him some backup.
- Sudden Sequel Heel Syndrome: Ben Kehoe and Frank are revealed to be Dirty Cops. Not only that, but Ben is the Iceman.
- That One Case: Jack has spent years tracking down the mysterious "Iceman" to the point where everyone else is telling him to let it go. Turns out it's his friend Ben.
- Token Good Cop: Downplayed: Noble Bigot with a Badge Jack may not be an exceptional cop or person, but he gets Character Development and does his job diligently, while in the sequel, his fellow prominent cops are two corrupt detectives and a Smug Snake Internal Affairs investigator.
- Too Dumb to Live:
- The bartender in the opening scene. Poor guy, but if your only patrons just blew away two highway patrol officers in front of you, trying to call 911 on them while they're still in your bar is the last thing you'd want to do to avoid meeting the same fate.
- One of the cowboys joining the Bar Brawl with Jack sneers that Reggie doesn't have the guts to use the gun he's borrowed from the bartender. He's damn lucky Reggie only puts one through his kneecap.
- On a non-lethal level: Reggie meets up with Jack after Jack sucker-punched him, and innocently asks which shoulder Jack got shot in. Jack tells him and mentions that the bruise still hurts like hell - really, Jack?
- Treacherous Advisor: A Retcon makes Jack Cates's fellow officer and longtime friend, Ben, the Big Bad, whom Reggie Hammond had robbed in the Backstory to the first film, making him the first film's Greater-Scope Villain, and the one who has been feeding Jack misinformation all along.