Detroit cop Axel Foley (Eddie Murphy) is watching the news on TV when the reporter tells a story that Axel's friend, Beverly Hills police Captain Andrew Bogomil (Ronny Cox), has been shot. Axel heads out to Beverly Hills to visit Bogomil in the hospital, and is reunited with Bogomil's daughter Jan (Alice Adair). Axel is also reunited with Det. Billy Rosewood (Judge Reinhold) and Sgt. John Taggart (John Ashton). Axel, Rosewood, and Taggart soon discover that the alphabet robberies are being masterminded by weapons kingpin Maxwell Dent (Jurgen Prochnow), and Dent had sent his fiancee Karla Fry (Brigitte Nielsen) to kill Bogomil because he had been after Dent.

When one of his old buddies in the Beverly Hills Police Department is shot in the line of duty, Detroit police detective Alex Foley heads west to investigate.