It’s always fun to find a hidden gem from a star’s early years. Eddie Murphy’s Best Defense is not one of them – at least according to the star. But Kino Lorber is going to try to give it a new life, announcing that they will release Best Defense on 4K later this year.
Best Defense came out at the dawn of Eddie Murphy’s box office tear, arriving after 48 Hrs. and Trading Places and before Beverly Hills Cop. Those are all classics of ‘80s comedy, but Murphy would apparently prefer you just ignore Best Defense altogether…so we can’t imagine he’ll be too happy hearing it is getting a restoration.
Murphy was pretty much in a position to take any movie he wanted at that time. Yet, even knowing the script was awful, he signed on anyway – hey, that’s what a $1 million paycheck can do to you (and who didn’t want to play “strategic guest star” to Dudley Moore in the mid-’80s?). Such a dent in his career and integrity at the time, Murphy actually called out Best Defense during his opening monologue when he hosted SNL later that year. “I read the script at first, and the script was terrible, I was like, ‘What?! How dare you give me a script like this! Oh, that much money? Let’s go!’ So I read the script Best Defense, I went out and did Best Defense, Best Defense turned out to be the worst movie ever done in the history of anything, and all of a sudden, I wasn’t that hot no more. So, I called up the producer of Saturday Night Live, and I go, “Um, you still got my dressin’ room?”
Here is the plot of Best Defense: “If you’re out to build the ultimate Super Tanker/Super Weapon, and you find out Dudley Moore has something to do with designing the missile guidance system, you’ve got to be concerned. Then, when you find out Eddie Murphy is going to test the tank in an actual combat situation, you ought to forget about it all together. Luckily for us, the government and Dynatechnics Incorporated don’t know Moore and Murphy like we do. And both comics are turned loose on a high-tech, hilarious adventure that sets modern warfare back a couple of hundred years.”
Best Defense might not take a Vampire in Brooklyn-level beatdown but it was no doubt a mark on Murphy’s blossoming movie career. Then again, good for Kino Lorber for giving fans a chance to discover a lesser-known title in a comedy legend’s filmography.
Have you seen Best Defense? Will you give it a shot when it comes to Blu-ray later this year?
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