Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F follows Detective Axel Foley on a case that threatens his estranged daughter’s life. The film is now streaming on Netflix.
Warning: This article contains heavy spoilers
Plot summary
Detective Axel Foley is sharp and good at solving cases, but he is infamous for leaving a mess behind wherever he goes.
Eventually, Axel’s deputy chief, Jeffery, has to resign when he takes responsibility for yet another mess Axel creates.
Axel then gets a call from Billy, an old friend who looks out for Axel’s estranged daughter, Jane Saunders, a lawyer.
Years ago, Axel made Jane move to Beverly Hills with her mother to keep them safe from the gang he was pursuing in Detroit.
Axel’s wife then divorced him, and as Jane kept pushing him away, he did not make the effort to keep in touch with her, but he still cares about her.
Billy tells Axel that Jane is representing a man named Sam Enriquez, who is accused of killing an undercover police officer, Copeland.
Jane believes that Sam is innocent and that Copeland was a corrupt officer. Her argument in court leads to a group of masked men attacking her.
Billy tries to convince Jane to drop the case, but she refuses, leading to Billy contacting Axel, who immediately travels to Beverly Hills to protect his daughter.
Billy continues investigating Sam’s case on his own and ends up getting kidnapped before Axel reaches Beverly Hills. Axel later encounters a few men searching Billy’s office.
While running from those men, Axel creates a mess once again and is taken to the police station, where he meets another old friend, Chief Taggart.
He also meets Detective Bobby Abbott, a former LAPD air support who is Jane’s ex-boyfriend, and Cade Grant, who runs the interdepartmental narcotics task force.
Although Jane wants nothing to do with Axel, she gets him released and teams up with him to investigate the case for Billy’s sake.
Jane and Axel find out that Billy had found footage from a surveillance camera installed in Copeland’s car, which captured the murder.
Soon, the men who kidnapped Billy also start following Jane and Axel, who discover that those men work for Grant, whom they suspect of being a corrupt officer.
While working together, Axel tries to mend his relationship with Jane. Despite Jane telling him that his efforts are too little too late, Axel does not give up.
Eventually, even Bobby becomes convinced that there is more to the case and that Sam might not be Copeland’s murderer, but Taggart remains unconvinced.
When Axel and Jane are attacked in broad daylight, it is Bobby who comes to their rescue, which results in him getting suspended.
Bobby tells Axel that the men who attacked them are from a cartel kill crew and were arrested a few months back by Billy, but as there was no evidence, the case was dropped.
The supervisor on the case was Grant, whom Billy accused of tampering with the evidence, but no one believed him, not even his own partner Taggart.
Billy then quit his job and became a private investigator. Now, Billy is missing because he continued investigating Grant and his connection to the cartel.
After Bobby gets suspended, he decides to investigate the case with Jane and Axel. The three of them uncover that Billy was right about Grant being a corrupt officer when Axel breaks into an estate owned by Grant.
It is Grant who got Copeland murdered, but Axel, Jane, and Bobby still need to find a way to prove that and find Billy before it is too late.
Ending explained:
The truth about Copeland’s death
While Bobby and Axel decide to meet Sam’s uncle, Chalino, who is a drug dealer, Jane advises them not to put themselves in danger recklessly.
Jane and Axel have another argument, during which Jane accuses Axel of only caring about his job because he never put nearly half as much effort into maintaining a relationship with her as he did into his work.
Jane refuses to meet Chalino with them, leaving Bobby and Axel alone. Bobby helps Axel understand Jane’s perspective and advises him to apologize to her.
The two of them then meet Chalino, who tells them that Grant is part of a drug cartel and has several other corrupt officers working for him.
While investigating Grant, Billy met Copeland, who no longer wanted to be a corrupt officer, so Grant had him killed.
Chalino also reveals that Billy was kidnapped by the cartel at the port, where they bring in drugs. However, before Axel and Bobby can go to the port, they are set up and arrested by Grant.
Jane’s abduction
Axel manages to fool Grant and free himself as well as Bobby. He makes Bobby steal a police chopper to escape, causing chaos in their wake.
The two of them make it to the port without getting caught, where they find and rescue Billy. They also steal a truck full of drugs, which belongs to the cartel.
Meanwhile, Jane regrets fighting with her father. When she fails to contact him, she meets Taggart and tells him everything they have discovered about Grant.
She is then kidnapped by Grant’s henchmen. Grant now wants Axel to bring him the footage that Billy has as well as the truck they stole.
Mending bonds
Axel, Bobby, and Billy go to Grant’s estate where he is holding Jane hostage. As they are currently fugitives, they cannot call for backup, so Axel breaks traffic laws to get police cars to follow him.
Taggart hears about this and goes to the estate to help his friends out. Taggart and Billy reconcile when Taggart apologizes to Billy for not supporting him.
Axel and his group fight Grant’s henchmen, and when Grant tries to shoot Jane, Axel takes the bullet for her, leading to Bobby killing Grant.
Axel survives. Additionally, with the help of the footage that Billy possesses, Jane is able to prove Sam’s innocence.
Axel’s actions make Jane realize that her father cares for her a lot. Her relationship with Axel improves because the two of them now understand each other better.
Axel now plans to keep in touch with Jane. The film ends with Axel going out for dinner with his friends Taggart and Billy.
Also Read: The Whirlwind summary and ending explained