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.

punishmentpark The Dudley Moore / Eddie Murphy debacle. The premise has enough promise, but it never really takes off. The shenanigans in the factory are plain dull. Moore gets to be sarcastic, but not funny, and gets into woman trouble (Helen Shaver and Kate Capshaw are most easy on the eye), but is soon interrupted by a bumbling group of agents who need his help to catch the Rasche character, which leads to some okay consternation in a parking lot. Then there is the whole situation in the Middle-East with Eddie Murphy; I didn't find a single good joke in there. The supposed-to-be-suspenseful (right?) inter-cutting with the other half of the film doesn't work one bit, either.Moore, Murphy, Rasche and other assorted actors may have given it a good go, but without funny jokes and / or an entertaining story, it don't WAMmo, no sir.2 out of 10.

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!!!

hawkjoel I'm surprised someone would allow this piece of crap to be released after seeing it the first time. Someone saw it, added Eddie Murphy and still released it. What a waste of time, talent, film, air, etc.