Lethal Weapon
Written by Shane Black and directed by Richard Donner, 1987's Lethal Weapon offered the classic odd couple pairing throwing together 50 year-old buttoned-down family man Roger Murtaugh (Danny Glover) with the reckless and suicidal Martin Riggs (Mel Gibson). Everything we need to know about both men is in each's separate introductory scenes. We find Murtaugh in the chaotic, but loving, house full of his wife and children celebrating his birthday which is in drastic contrast to the hungover Riggs waking up on his trailer on the beach with only his television and dog as company (only one of which survives the morning).
The pair's first case begins with the suicide of the daughter (Jackie Swanson) of one of Murtaugh's old army buddies (Tom Atkins) who was poisoned before jumping out a skyscraper widow. While uncovering a drug pipeline that goes back to the days of the Vietnam War, the pair will kill a pimp in a pool and nearly get killed in a drive-by shooting, taking time out to eat dinner with the Murtaugh family before being tortured by the drug runners.
Darker than the sequels, with Riggs' antics not quite as zany as in the later movies, the first film in the franchise doesn't take too long to find the sweet spot and get the pair's bickering down. The director's cut adds five minutes to the film giving us another example of Riggs' recklessness taking out a school shooter before his aborted suicide attempt, both taking place the day prior to his first meeting with Murtaugh. A shorter sequence of him proposition a hooker to have someone to watch TV also helps fill out his character, his loneliness, and sense of desperation.
The film certainly ratches up the action in the second half as the pair are targeted by the baddies who attempt a drive-by shooting of Riggs and kidnap Murtaugh's daughter (Traci Wolfe). And like most Shane Black scripts, the events take place during Christmas which allows for an earlier action scene involving Riggs' bust in a Christmas Tree lot. The film isn't without some flaws, including how easy it is for the bloody and armed pair to get around the city by simply flashing a badge and most notably the ending where Murtaugh holds off an army of cops to allow Riggs to prove something against the maniacal Mr. Joshua (Gary Busey).
While for me Lethal Weapon 2 is the most fun the four films in the franchise, whose enhanced zaniness helps smooth over some of the flaws of the series, the first Lethal Weapon was an immediate and lasting hit launching a franchise (and even later a TV show). The film has been released on home video several times over the year and the new 4K edition is available both in standard and a limited edition steel book version as well.
- Title: Lethal Weapon
- IMDb: link
