Walter Hill's thirteenth feature is also — oh, unhappy day! — his first sequel. A sequel, moreover, to the most negligible and not coincidentally most lucrative of his previous movies. The verbal and sometimes manual patty-cake of Nick Nolte's slobby cop and Eddie Murphy's spiffy con — Rumbles and Screechy — settled very soon into shtick in the first go-round, and in the reprise has only gotten comfier. And lazier. Really the only surprise during hours 49 through 96 is that there is anything at all to prop up the eyelids. The convergence of three motorcycle outlaws at a remote desert cantina pleasantly revives the director's not-so-secret romance with the Old West — but that's before the 48-hour clock starts ticking, before either of the stars makes his floor-creaking entrance, before the scale of the action (in the very next scene) trespasses upon the apocalyptic. Even after that, there's a shootout in the red-lit corridors of a Chinatown hotel which matches the best scene in the original 48 HRS. Hill, it's nice to say, but not a lot to say, hasn't lost all skill when he has lost all excuse. (1990) — Duncan Shepherd