Customer Reviews

Downtown

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I always reccomend this movie to people looking for offbeat entertainment. Edwards and Whitaker play 2 cops thrust together in a tough precinct located 'Downtown', hence the name. Lots of comedic situations, but real violence-not for the squeamish.

Anthony Edwards is banished to downtown Philly from the wealthyburbs on the word of a disgruntled wealthyburbite. He's as white as they come; the denizens of downtown are, uh, not.

Forest Whitaker is his unwilling/unwitting partner with passion but no tolerance. Beach Boys? NO!

It's a predictable but enjoyable romp, and Art Evans plays a streetwise police Lt with a penchant for using a 4-letter copulatory verb. Yeah, that's the one.

It's not vaguely believeable, but Edwards is so fresh and pre-ER-ish, it's a lot of fun. Plus, Whitaker brings a level of intensity not really suited to the movie, but characteristic of all his roles. Doesn't hurt he went on to anchor an ER story arc.

For the price, you can't beat it. Pop some corn and curl up for a while.

This is a fish out of water story (a reversed, Beverly Hills Cop, if you would) where a white cop from a shiny, modernized, police station, is transferred to a gritty, dilapidated, and crime ridded, gettoeque, police station, in one of the best 80's styled buddy films ever made.

There's plenty of laughs, action, and Beach Boys music, for everyone to enjoy.

Anthony Edwards (when he had hair) as the shiny new, eager to right the worlds wrongs cop, from the right side of the tracks, who plays, ever so gratingly, against Forest Whitaker, as the put upon, chip on his shoulder cop, from the wrong side of the tracks.

The fun in the movie is watching the bond between the two cops, grow, as each learns to appreciate the other, and become friends.

This movie is a classic, and WELL worth the price of admission.

Don't believe Maltin. This is a cool film. It shows a white cop with no experience of the inner city going to school Downtown. He learns the hard way on a lot of the idiosyncrasies of "da hood". What Maltin also missed was the angry commanding officer of the Diamond Street District. Watching him go off is funny as hell. Don't miss this movie. You'll learn a few come backs for your boss one day from this guy.

the film would have been better if the screenwriter had his philadelphia city details more accurate[North Philadelphia is Uptown-Diamond street is two miles from the Downtown section of Philadelphia. Ardmore is in another county outside of Philadelphia]. It inadvertently resurrected the myth of white supremacy and black inferiority. It inferred that the Police station inthe fictional Ardmore was state of the art and well ordered while the Police Station in the fictional Downtown section of Philadelphia was antiquated and Administrated by a Loud incomptent Black man whose station was almost taken over by a group of neighborhood thugs. In the time period late 1980's early 1990's The whole Philadelphia Police Department was state of the art and did not have any antiquated Police stations. The acting of all of the performers was superb. The storyline was standard but the above inaccuracies detracted from the overall movie. I live in Philadelphia and have seen other films featuring Philadelphia which had more credibility because they got the background details right.

"Downtown" is a box office crash & burn from 1990. Basically it is yet another unsuccessful attempt to follow-up on the success of "Beverly Hills Cop" (without the benefit of Eddie Murphy). These inter-racial, buddy picture, cop movie, comedy-action features simply don't work without a talented comic and Anthony Edwards of "Revenge of the Nerds" fame is only mildly funny. Add to this a more serious group of themes than Murphy had to deal with and the incongruity of mixing these conflicting genres makes the whole a lot less than the sum of its parts.

Yet "Downtown" is more entertaining than its "bomb at the box office" reputation would lead you to believe. The production design, filming, and editing are first class. Although the action scenes are unconvincing, this is due more to lamely inserted comedy elements than cheap staging.

Much is genuinely embarrassing such as when a PCP abuser holds a little girl hostage, with a gun to her head, and the subtext lamely plays the scene for laughs. What genius thought that scene would work? And they wonder why these things lose money? In this exercise in schizoid film-making, Anthony Edwards and Forest Whitaker are the standard odd couple partnering up to solve the murder of Edwards' former partner. Nerd boy Alex (Edwards) in his worst scenes listens to Beach Boys music and in his best scenes is paired with his girlfriend (Penelope Ann Miller).

Alex is a suburban patrolman who has been banished to the worst downtown Philly division because of a confrontation with a slimy bigwig (unconvincingly overplayed by David Clennon). Dennis (Whitaker) is a detective with a lot of baggage that makes it difficult for him to warm up to Alex.

But Alex and Dennis eventually bond (big surprise) and Whitaker turns in a pretty good performance (much too good for this material). Whitaker and Miller assist the marginally talented but generally likable Edwards enough that it is possible for the average viewer to suspend disbelief most of the time and actually get into the story. Just be prepared for a lot of extremely lame moments that would have been more entertaining had the editor relegated them to his deleted scenes bin.

Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.

this is a very good movie i think its good for a white cop to hang down in the hood anthony edwards has guts the funny part was watching him eat chittlings and getting sick and the best part they became friends we need more movies like this made in todays society.

I had taped this movie from TV years ago and just wanted to have it for my own. I always liked Anthony Edwards from ER and think Forest Whitaker is a great actor. This was just an all around great movie.