Axel Foley is loved by the Detroit Police Department. He’s solved numerous cases, put hordes of bad guys behind bars and cost the city thousands, if not millions, of dollars in damages while doing so.
Did I say loved? I meant loathed.
But Detroit isn’t the only place Axel has made a name for himself. In California, the legendary cop is similarly loathed by the Beverly Hills PD—and for pretty much the same reasons.
So when former Beverly Hills cop Billy Rosewood calls Axel for help, Chief Taggart is none too pleased.
Sure, Taggart loves Axel personally: Foley has come in clutch on three other cases before. They’re old pals. But professionally? He knows it might be simpler to retire than take on the paperwork that comes with an Axel Foley case.
Nevertheless, nothing is going to stop Axel from helping on the case this time—mostly because it involves Axel’s estranged daughter, Jane.
Jane is an attorney defending Sam Enriquez, an alleged cop killer and drug smuggler who claims he’s innocent.
Jane believes the man was set up. Rosewood does, too. And when the two start poking around for evidence, Jane nearly loses her life and Rosewood disappears.
Axel needs Jane’s help to find Rosewood and solve the case. But Jane isn’t exactly on speaking terms with her dad. She’s still upset about how he ended things with her mom. And she’s convinced his presence isn’t so much out of concern for her wellbeing as it is professional pride.
Unfortunately, Jane needs Axel’s help, too. She knows he’s her best shot at finding Rosewood and getting the evidence she needs to exonerate her client.
Looks like this father-daughter duo will just have to let bygones be bygones—at least until the case is solved.
Axel is often stubborn—relentless, even. It’s his “maniacal focus” on his work that makes him a great detective. But it’s also what drove him and Jane apart.
When Jane was young, some crime lords had threatened Axel’s family, so he moved Jane and her mother to Beverly Hills. Then he went back to Detroit to finish the job. Sadly, he just never came back for his family.
It hurt Jane deeply. And Axel recognizes that he was in the wrong, but he’s unable to admit it. Yes, he’s ashamed, but he was also trying to protect his daughter. He tries to explain his reasoning to Jane, but she doesn’t want excuses; she wants an apology.
Axel eventually realizes Jane is right. He should have prioritized his family, not his work. He owns up to his mistakes, and he apologizes to her. Jane accepts his apology. She realizes that although Axel should have stepped up when she was a kid, he’s at least trying to do so in the present. And now that she’s grown, she can meet him halfway, granting him patience and helping him to grow instead of expecting him to figure it out on his own.
Bobby Abbott, the detective on Enriquez’s case (and Jane’s ex-boyfriend), initially refuses to work with Axel because of the seasoned cop’s unorthodox methods. However, after he’s unfairly suspended and removed from the case, Bobby realizes why Axel does things the way he does. He and Axel team up, breaking some laws as they continue to work the case until justice is served.
Bobby also helps Axel understand where Jane is coming from. His own dad abandoned him and his mom when he was a kid. And even though it took many years for him and his dad to reconcile, he’s glad they finally did.
Two of Axel’s superiors take the heat for his actions (namely destruction of property), so he won’t get suspended while working a case. Those same men urge Axel to fix his relationship with Jane before it’s too late. Jane offers to take a case pro bono since she believes the accused is innocent. We hear about a crooked cop who tried to come clean before he was killed.
People risk their lives to save others. One man takes a bullet for someone (though he’s ultimately OK).
A woman wears a burka. There’s a reference to altar boys.
Axel makes several jokes about sex to hide his discomfort after learning that Bobby and Jane used to date. Rosewood asks Bobby if Axel has taken him to a strip club. We hear other mentions of sex. Axel claims to be celibate.
While pretending to be married (to trick a real-estate agent), Jane kisses Bobby. We see several nude statues. Women sometimes wear cleavage-baring tops. (One woman poses provocatively as her child photographs her for social media.) Several men dress and act effeminately—one man wears shorts that have “I like it hot” printed on the rear; another has thick eyeliner and glitter on his face.
A woman says she broke up with someone because he was selling pictures of her feet online. Song lyrics include sexual innudendo. We hear several crass terms for female anatomy. Axel mocks Bobby’s surname, calling him “ab butt.”
Whether Sam Enriquez is a cop killer or not seems to be a bit arbitrary when you consider that just about every other bad guy in the film is—or at least is trying to be. Baddies fire rounds at Taggart, Rosewood, Abbott and especially Foley.
Of course, those cops all fire back, and they tend to be much better shots, nailing several guys in the head and spilling a decent amount of blood.
Jane has her own share of life-or-death experiences, too. Men in masks trap her in her car in a parking garage. They smash the window to scare her. Then they cut the cables that act as a sort of railing and push her car (with her still in it) over the edge. However, she’s unharmed, since they also attach a tow cable to the front of her car, catching it after it falls off.
The whole endeavor is meant to send Jane a message—to get her to drop Enriquez’s case. But she won’t be intimidated. And when she next meets the assailants, they try to kill her and her father in a coordinated attack involving machine guns. She’s eventually kidnapped by a masked man holding a gun to her head.
It’s understandable why the cities of Detroit and Beverly Hills loathe Axel so much when you tally up his collateral damage. The man gets into multiple car chases (and one helicopter chase), smashing into other cars, porta-potties and even buildings. Civilians often leap out of his way. And at least one (empty) vehicle explodes after he hits it. Granted, some of these incidents aren’t Axel’s fault: Many of the film’s antagonists target Axel while he happens to be driving.
Miraculously, no civilians get killed onscreen. A significant number are scared out of their wits though, and they only avoid perilous fates by running and screaming in terror.
When Axel is arrested, he tells the officers he’s a cop; they warn him not to reach for his badge, and he responds that he knows better as a fellow cop and as a Black man, hinting at deeper racial tensions.
Many people are threatened and held at gunpoint. A woman smashes a vase over a man’s head, rendering him unconscious. Axel hits a man in the head with a fire extinguisher; we later see the man with a cut on his head. Several people are knocked unconscious. A woman pepper sprays Axel. Two men get tased. Police officers sometimes handle suspects roughly. A man with many cuts and bruises says he was tortured for information.
We hear almost a hundred uses of the f-word and more than 75 uses of the s-word. The n-word is used four times in a non-derogatory manner. We also hear several uses each of “a–,” “a–hole,” “b–tard,” “b–ch,” “d–n,” “h—,” “p-ss” and one particularly crude term for oral sex.
God’s name is abused nearly 30 times, half of which are paired with “damn.” Christ’s name is abused an additional 15 times.
People display their middle fingers thrice (once by a child).
The film’s villains are part of a drug cartel, and we see cocaine getting packaged and smuggled. One man snorts the powder. A young man admits to muling drugs after his uncle talked him into it (though he claims it was a one-time occurrence).
People drink alcohol throughout the film.
A elderly man asks his wife about the correct dosage of his prescription medications.
Crooked cops provide much of this story’s narrative, and we hear about and witness many of their illegal actions. One bad police officer admits that he got into drug dealing because he couldn’t afford to live in the city that he had been hired to protect. (He was also bitter about only receiving a ribbon after getting shot in the line of duty.) We witness a security officer accepting a bribe. And we hear about several people getting set up for crimes they didn’t commit.
Although Axel is a good guy, he’s not so good at following rules. For instance, he infamously keeps working on cases even though he’s been pulled off them. He abuses his police badge to commandeer vehicles. He’s also manipulative, often tricking other detectives (and even Jane) into following up on suspects so he can further his own investigations. And he doesn’t seem to be remorseful, taking it for granted that others have had to take the heat for him and shrugging it off when he’s warned he’ll be suspended.
We witness a robbery. Men break into Rosewood’s office to steal an SD card.
There are several jokes about racial tensions, including a brief conversation about racial double standards. Axel mocks a white man after setting him up for a racially tinged joke.
Axel attempts to make another man feel insecure about his masculinity, but the guy calls him out for the childish behavior.
People lie. Many act selfishly. Some boys set off fireworks, and Axel jokingly tells them he could arrest them for doing so. A man commiserates with his friend that his grandchild is a “sociopath.” Someone repeatedly tries to upset Axel by bringing up his strained relationship with Jane. A woman says her 4-year-old son is a “loser.”
We learn that Axel’s wife asked him for a divorce because he was an absent husband and father. A man makes some derogatory remarks about his own wife and marriage. And another guy says his kids won’t talk to him since his own divorce. Axel is insulted that Jane changed her last name to disassociate herself from him.
It’s been 30 years since we’ve seen Axel Foley onscreen, and for the most part, he’s up to his old antics.
Though he’s a good cop, Axel still doesn’t go by the book—which often causes problems for his superiors. As usual, he drags other detectives into his schemes, too. And while justice is served, the story seems to say that you can only hope to catch the lawbreakers by breaking a few laws yourself.
Perhaps that’s a bit of a harsh assessment for a buddy-cop film—especially one that tries to focus on a father and daughter reconciling—but the content in the movie itself is pretty harsh.
Language includes nearly a hundred f-words alone. Toss in about 45 abuses of God’s and Jesus’ names, and it’s downright unlistenable.
Though the sexual content in Axel F is considerably tamer compared to the previous Beverly Hills Cop films (there are notably no strip club scenes here), we still hear about sex and see some … interesting attire on Beverly Hills residents.
And, of course, there’s a fair bit of bloodshed. Cops shoot bad guys. Bad guys shoot cops. Cops shoot other cops. Bad guys shoot other bad guys. Not to mention a practical nonstop tirade of car and helicopter chases endangering citizens and damaging property.
So, if you were hoping Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F would reboot the franchise in a family-friendly manner, you’ll be disappointed. This franchise is just as much up to its own old antics as Axel himself is.
Emily studied film and writing when she was in college. And when she isn’t being way too competitive while playing board games, she enjoys food, sleep, and geeking out with her husband indulging in their “nerdoms,” which is the collective fan cultures of everything they love, such as Star Wars, Star Trek, Stargate and Lord of the Rings.
