Lethal Weapon Review

I decided the best place to start my Retro Reviews would be reviewing movies made in my birth year. I realize in RETROspect that this was a surefire way to remind myself of how old I really am, but…OH WELL! So here I am, watching Lethal Weapon.
Lethal Weapon is a movie that has been a part of the zeitgeist for a long time, having accrued a 4-movie franchise and plenty of room for lampoon (see “Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia). And yet I’ve never actually seen it. Until now. To give some context, Lethal Weapon is directed by Richard Donner, whose notable credits include “The Omen” ”The Goonies” and the original “Superman,” not to mention later Gibson-heavy pictures such as “Maverick” and “Conspiracy Theory.” He went on to produce the (good) X-Men movies (X-Men, X Men 2 and Days of Future Past – NOT X-MEN 3!!!). He was an advocate of making non-camp versions of comic hero stories, and was even potentially going to direct 1991’s “Batman” with Mel Gibson as our hero (can you IMAGINE?!?)
Okay, here we go! LETHAL WEAPON
The movie opens with a very ‘Die-Hard’-y sensibility; it is Christmas-time, we’re in Downtown Los Angeles (I realize Die Hard came out a year later, but its my closest point of reference). The camera pans to the window of a downtown LA apartment complex where some ‘80’s-attractive’ chick is lying, sprawled out in a silk robe, one boob meticulously exposed. She is clearly “on drugs,” – you know, she giggles, she touches her face, and we ALL know that cocaine makes you jump off buildings with your boobs out. She lands on the hood of a car, the same boob stylishly exposed as when we first met her.
We then meet Roger Murtaugh, as played by Danny Glover, the Veteran-cop family man whose family loves him so much that they barge into the bathroom where he’s naked, taking a bath, in order to give him a birthday cake. His family loves him so much that they rap (poorly) together around the dinner table. Basically, this guy has a solid thing going. We juxtapose that (with some serious jazz sax) with Martin Riggs, Murtaugh’s soon-to-be partner, played by Mel Gibson. Riggs is also naked, but he’s naked in a trailer. The first 3 characters we spend any time with, are NAKED. But I digress.
Riggs is a narcotics detective. He lost his wife in a car accident. He’s sad. He drinks. He contemplates suicide, all of that. BUT he’s great at shooting, and we certainly enjoy watching his mullet flutter in the breeze when he head-butts people. He’s a bit wild, he’s off the cuff, he doesn’t play by the rules. When he and Murtaugh compete at the shooting range, Riggs shoots a smiley face into the paper target, then follows it up with a very clever and charming, “Have a nice day…” We learn early on that with all his skills, he himself is the LETHAL WEAPON (Drink for title!!). We also learn that Murtaugh is “too old for this shit” (given that he just turned 50). The two are the quintessential odd-couple partner duo that makes for all kinds of fun.
They learn that there’s quite a conspiracy involved in boob jumper’s death, that she’d actually been poisoned. We eventually learn that her father, who’d been a comrade of Murtaugh’s when they were in Nam, was actually involved with the drug cartel responsible for her murder. The enemy drug lord himself is also a Vietnam Vet. I have to say, since most drug lords in movies have some ambiguously ethnic accent, or are blatantly Latin and/or Eastern European, it was a breath of fresh air to see a Charleton Heston, Vietnam War Vet-type kingpin. Couple that with the fact that his right-hand man is played by Gary Busey, the “Albino jackrabbit son of a bitch” – basically, we’re in for a treat.
Chaos ensues, the bad guys kidnap Murtaugh’s teenage daughter (who clearly wants to bone Riggs), and they have an epic showdown in the desert to get her back (with a Phil Collins-looking guy at the foreground, Busey and his white golf sweater standing nearby).
The movie culminates with an epic car chase through Hollywood. Its always funny to see movies set in LA – the streets are ALWAYS wet and drivers never have to deal with true LA traffic (don’t even get me started on “Speed”). The climax is a man-to-man brawl outside of Murtaugh’s house, between Riggs and Busey, of course specifically where a fire hydrant has been blown open. I feel like the filmmakers probably wanted to have an epic rain brawl, but maybe realized it seemed too far-fetched in ‘Dustbowl LA’, so instead just had them fight within the range of the hydrant, regardless of the fact that the two could have simply moved 20 feet to the right and not be slipping and sliding all over the place. Again, I digress…
Riggs decides not to kill Busey (because he’s learned how to control his crazy ass), but of course Busey lunges for him and Murtaugh/Riggs have to slow-mo tag-team shoot the son of a biyatch. Because THEY ARE PARTNERS.
Overall, Lethal Weapon is a delightful, cheesy, buddy cop romp with a little bit of edge here and there. We occasionally touch (and I mean barely graze) the notion of how silly drug laws really are. Like the fact that Murtaugh’s teenage daughter is allowed to drink beer, but not allowed to smoke ‘grass.’ Murtaugh’s reason being that “Drinking is legal, grass ain’t, right?” To which daughter says, “Wrong!” and then Riggs follows with “Right.” Sweet philosophizing, Bro!
There’s also an awkward moment when Murtaugh questions some young black children but they refuse to answer because “The police shoot black people!” Yikes…
Fun tidbits to consider:
-Eric Clapton does all of the epic guitar riffs
-I can’t emphasize the jazz sax enough – when the drama gets really heavy, the sax gets as crazy as the goddamn Saturday Night Live Intro
– MEL GIBSON’S HAIRSTYLE WAS CREATED BY RAMSEY.