Lethal Weapon

Once again, I am down the list of movies that I fully intended to see a long time ago but got lazy and never actually checked out and now I don't have an excuse not to.

Lethal Weapon is a movie that is iconic because its referenced in pop culture as a great buddy cop movie, but I don't think I've ever really known the story outside of the names of the cops and Murtaugh's iconic catchphrase, "I'm getting too old for this shit". You don't have to have seen Die Hard to know its a movie about Bruce Willis fighting terrorists in a skyscraper on Christmas. But I have never had anyone mention the plot of Lethal Weapon.

Lethal Weapon follows the story of Martin Riggs (played by Mel Gibson) and Roger Murtaugh (played by Danny Glover), two detectives for the LAPD. Murtagh is a veteran cop who is "too old for this shit". He fought in Vietnam, has a family, and while it's never explicitly said that he plays by the books, he's pretty straight laced, especially in comparison with his new partner.

Martin Riggs is a loose canon former special forces, martial arts master (?), renegade cop with a death wish. The movie establishes very quickly that he's self destructive after the death of his wife and seems to be placed as Murtaugh's partner as a quiet position while the LAPD figures out what to do with him.

The first thing I think this movie does well is that it takes a good amount of time, possibly too long of time (but we'll get to that), establishing a relationship with these characters. They really do a good job setting these characters up and having the plot orbit them rather than the other way around. We see their relationship grow and they go from despising each other to genuine friendship in a good amount of time that didn't seem forced or rushed.

With that being said, it takes a little bit for the plot to actually start up in any meaningful way. Much of the first half of this movie is almost a romance between these two. There is a case that is the overarching plot and that case doesn't really get addressed until about half way through the film and by that point, they reach the twist and almost turning point. It almost feels like its missing a second act because they spend the first half getting to know one another and it feels like the half way point brings them into the third act that feels very long.

But another really interesting and intriguing thing about this movie is how it really rides the line of being a genuinely funny movie without being  a full out comedy and being a gritty police drama without being too serious. There are a lot of scenes where I was laughing pretty hard and there were moments that get very serious. In the same movie where Riggs is contemplating suicide, there is also a scene where Murtaugh's daughter is giving Riggs the "do me" eyes.

We probably should have seen some red flags from Mel Gibson in this movie because he really does do a pretty good unhinged cop. And Danny Glover juxtaposes him really well as the cop with the family who is "too old for this shit".

The funny thing about watching this movie in 2020 is that the film has a lot of buddy cop tropes that have become really tired and overused since. But since Lethal Weapon came out in the hayday of 80's action films and did those tropes in such an over the top way, it probably either made some of those tropes famous, or just did it in a way that didn't feel tired in 1987. I was having some trouble deciding whether or not it holds up thirty years later and I came up with these thoughts.

While it is not totally fair to compare this movie to Die Hard, if you're looking at violent 80's action cop movies, Die Hard probably took some of the elements of Lethal Weapon and applied it to make it better. Furthermore, Lethal Weapon is so over the top that it almost feels like satire. And while that was a lot of 80's action films, I think some of it holds up because its just a time capsule of the movies that came out during that time.

It's worth mentioning that Gary Busey is in this movie and I was somewhat-disappointingly underwhelmed by his role in this movie. I think I just expected more from Gary Busey. Like you hear that Gary Busey is in an 80's action film you think it's going to be something over the top, but he's just a bad dude who ends up having a weird fight club style fist to cuffs fight with Mel Gibson at the end of the film for like no reason.

He also immediately reminded me of this underrated video.

He works for the main bad guy (played by Mitchell Ryan) but I think Busey really overshadows him for some reason and the truth is, they're not really the focus of the movie. Instead the focus is on Riggs and Murtaugh in a friendship that is clearly the draw of this film and spawned the entire franchise and a television show that I don't know a single person who has watched it.

I'm still not totally sure how this movie got 3 sequels but they're all on Netflix and I don't have a lot to do right now so I guess we'll figure out.

Overall, Lethal Weapon is an interesting little glimpse into a very interesting time in film making. Over the top acting, over the top action, catchphrases, and a pretty thin plot about drug dealers (or something) carried by great actors. It is a little uneven and the villains overall are pretty bland. While its not a fair comparison, Die Hard did it better a year later. The real question will be seeing who had a better franchise overall and I'm really not sure based on my pop culture knowledge of the two franchises. I can't say definitively that the movie holds up 30+ years later but it was still entertaining finally getting up to speed on a franchise that people know but nobody is really wild about. (Besides the guys on It's Always Sunny).

But those were my thoughts on Lethal Weapon. Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @MovieSymposium as well as send me your requests for films I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

Thanks for reading!