Karry
Best movie of this year hands down!
ChikPapa
Very disappointed :(
Teringer
An Exercise In Nonsense
Seraherrera
The movie is wonderful and true, an act of love in all its contradictions and complexity
slightlymad22
Continuing my plan to watch every Eddie Murphy movie in order, I come to Best Defence (1984)Plot In A Paragraph: A military weapons engineer struggles to do his job responsibly, while a tank commander has to live with the consequences in combat two years later.This is a real Mis step for Murphy and it's seriously unfunny!! Although both integral to the plot, Dudley Moore and Eddie Murphy never appear in the same scene. Murphy's (Billed as a Strategic Guest Star) character was added to the film after the original version tested disastrously with audiences. When asked about it Eddie Murphy replied I said "What?! How dare you give me a script like this! Oh, THAT much money? Let's go!" Murphy has also said, "How did I get involved? The door opened, and four men came in carrying a check, that was more than I was paid for 48 Hrs. and Trading Places combined."Murphy's scenes are set two years after Moore's but the two stories are intercut (long before it became fashionable to show movies out of order) so the Murphy scenes are littered throughout the movie, instead of all being at the end. One has to wonder how bad this movie was before Murphy's involvement, as he is the best thing in it by far, even though he is not on top form, and is at least watchable. There is one spell (about 30 mins in) where Murphy is not on screen for about half an hour, and I have serious thought to turning it off, as life is just too short!! I persevered with it. Best Defence grossed $19 million at the domestic box office to finish 1984 the 56th highest grossing movie of the year. Luckily for Murphy he had another movie out that in 1984, and the momentum his career had, was not hurt.
disdressed12
i'm not sure how else to say it.the above summary pretty much describes my feelings on this movie.add to that,lots of crude language for no apparent reason,and you have the recipe for a bad movie.there is some language that Christians might be offended by.***possible minor spoiler***Dudley Moore and Eddie Murphy appear in this movie,but as far as i know,they don't share any scenes together.at least they didn't through the forty minutes i was able to watch before quitting.***end of spoiler***.I found Murphy more annoying than anything,and Moore didn't really leave much of an impression at all.in all pretty much a waste of time.pretty close to awful,in fact.for me,Best Defense is a 2/10
randall pennington
I felt this was an interesting concept for a movie.Two characters separated by time and place, but connected by one piece of equipment, on a tank.It of course had its moments of cheese, but most comedies do.Moore's performance was good,as was Murphy's.The only really bad performances were the two female leads,Kate Capshaw, and Helen Shaver. Capshaw chews the scenery, but she pretty much does that in all of her movies, and certainly was no worse in this movie than in Space Camp.Helen Shaver's performance wasn't horrible, but she tended to whine a bit too much.Tom Noonan as the Soviet spy/surfer dude, was a scream,and the FBI surveillance scene made my sides hurt. My overall rating on this movie, is a solid 6,above average, but not terrific.I did feel the concept was very innovative, flashing back and forth from 1982 Southern California, to 1984 Kuwait.So, if you can find this movie in the bargain basement rack,for say 2 dollars or less, it might be worth it to have a look, otherwise, wait to see it on cable.
Craig Benting (craigbenting)
I cannot believe the appalling "tripe" I'm hearing from some IMDB users about this and other "bottom 100" IMDB movies.After only a few hundred votes, this movie makes it into the bottom 100??? How is that fair? Only a few hundred stuck-up movie critic wannabe's rate this movie and it gets a bottom-of-the-barrel rating?This movie is pretty good, especially when you consider it was one of Eddie Murphy's first movies. It was a little dull, but hardly worse than a 4-6 rating.Please people, let's save the 1-3 ratings for the TRULY horrible movies out there. If you give bad ratings to movies like this, you completely invalidate the entire system. These ratings have to be weighted by the number of people who voted -- you can't take 100 votes and call that comprehensive!!!
