After the murder of his childhood friend in front of his eyes, the slick Detroit detective, Axel Foley, heads to sunny Beverly Hills, on a one-man mission to ferret out the killer and bring him to justice. Before long, Axel and his unorthodox methods unearth the lucrative drug operation of the powerful local crime kingpin, Victor Maitland; however, Foley, too, will find himself in deep trouble, as Lieutenant Andrew Bogomil wants him out of town. Now, Axel will have to team up with Detectives, John Taggart, and Billy Rosewood, to shed

From IMDBL

Eddie Murphy at the peak of his career
Mega-hit action comedy from Paramount Pictures and producing duo Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer. Eddie Murphy became a genuine superstar with the starring role of Detroit Detective Axel Foley, a rule breaker and wisecracker that travels to Beverly Hills to solve a childhood friend's murder. It puts him at odds with a shady art dealer (Steven Berkoff) and the Beverly Hills police department. But Foley soon proves his mettle out West as he obviously has superior detective skills compared to his rule centric equivalents in Beverly Hills.

There are a lot of laughs here, and Murphy has tons of screen charisma. A lot of this will probably seem routine to modern audiences, but at the time this film established the action-comedy as one of the biggest genres of the decade. It also contains one of the signature 80's soundtracks, both the pop songs (several of which charted) and the score by Harold Faltermeyer, which includes the top ten single "Axel F." Directed by Martin Brest.

What helped make this film so great - the very fact that nobody involved KNEW it was great until it got rave audience reaction, is exactly what killed the sequel. Beverly Hills Cop Two rests too much on the laurels of the original, but then that is another story.