Viking Night: Lethal Weapon
By Bruce Hall
July 12, 2016
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Sorry. As I was saying, I’ve just had a wonderful experience. I know I have a habit of giving away my overall opinion early, but I assume if you’re still reading after that rather clumsy Baywatch Nights reference, that I’ve got your attention. So let me come right out and say that overall, Lethal Weapon is an epic, badass, masterpiece of action cinema. It succeeds at nearly everything to which it aspires, and is one of the few films you can say was truly a game changer.
But wait a minute - did someone say something about Christmas?
The great thing about a Christmas movie set in Los Angeles is that you don’t have to bother with making it actually LOOK like Christmas. Just...toss a few strings of lights in the periphery of every scene and call it good. Maybe open with “Jingle Bell Rock” playing in the background as a pert, young, freckled girl snorts a line of coke and then throws herself half naked off the apartment balcony. Wait, what? Yes, after establishing right away that it’s Christmas time, the holidays are rarely referenced again. I think the only reason it happened at all was to tie it in with another plot point, but we’ll get to that.
Contrast this with the home life of respected homicide detective Roger Murtaugh (Danny Glover), who is celebrating his 50th birthday with his loving family. Murtaugh is on the cusp of retirement, and is looking forward to spending his golden years with that giant family in his giant house with the three car garage and the boat in the driveway and exactly how much is detective Murtaugh making?
Assuming it’s all legal, life couldn’t be better for Team Murtaugh. Contrast this with not so celebrated detective Martin Riggs (Mel Gibson), an ex special forces badass who is in the midst of an extended psychological breakdown after the death of his wife. He lives in a battered trailer off the beach. He wakes up every morning naked with a cigarette in his mouth and takes most of his meals in liquid form - and I’m not talking about wheat grass smoothies. Riggs is genuinely devastated over this loss, and Mel Gibson - whose current reputation unfortunately obscures his many past achievements - sells the shit out of this one.
Let me be clear - by the time the character intros are over, it’s impossible not to feel completely invested in Riggs and Murtaugh. Well, “impossible” unless you’re an unfeeling monster. Murtaugh really seems like a great guy. His family is super likable. Meanwhile, Riggs is in his booze fumigated trailer, clutching at a picture of his dead wife while he stares down the barrel of his own service pistol. Lethal Weapon is a fantastically well written movie. Shane Black (screenwriter) was worth whatever they paid him and then some. Does it retroactively make up for Iron Man 3, which I enjoyed precisely as much as I enjoyed having all four of my impacted wisdom teeth removed?
Well, yes. Yes it does. Shane Black wrote Lethal Weapon and Predator. On that alone, he can steal my car and drive it through my living room with me on the couch, for all I care.
The truest benefit of such a superb setup is that by the time Riggs and Murtaugh are, per the trope, made reluctant partners, there’s actually legit tension. Everyone knows what Riggs is going through (although curiously, nobody actually tries to HELP him - more on that in a moment), and he’s considered a risk to work with, Murtaugh included. Meanwhile, Riggs isn’t so sure he trusts himself not to wander into traffic, clucking like a chicken the first time they get into a gunfight. The partnership probably wouldn’t have worked out - the film makes this abundantly obvious - except for one thing - why were Riggs and Murtaugh even partnered together, you ask?
It turns out the jumper at the beginning of the film was the daughter of Murtaugh’s old army BFF, a man named Hunsaker (Tom Atkins). When his daughter’s death connects Hunsaker with a shadowy underground of mercenaries (led by Mitchell Ryan and Gary Busey) things get personal, and it is here that the story really shines. Murtaugh returns a lifesaving favor by inviting Riggs into his home. This exposure to a stable family life gives the tortured veteran new hope, and a new respect for the man he serves with. I’ve already implied that Gibson crushes his role, and Danny Glover’s blue collar gravitas is the perfect compliment. He’s that guy who always plays by the rules but lets his suicidal partner drive home drunk about halfway through the film.
It was a different time. Please, don’t ever do that. The point is, Murtaugh is good for the kid.
That said, I believe I implied that not ALL the the characters fare equally well. By the time we meet our antagonists, there’s little time left for extensive introductions. For the sake of economy former General Peter McAllister (Ryan) and his crazy-ass honey badger henchman Mr. Joshua (Busey) are introduced in a scene where McAllister spontaneously starts screaming, grabs a cigarette lighter and tries to set Joshua’s arm on fire. Gary Busey was still in his physical and professional prime at this time, and as such, he makes for a superb villain. But let’s be real. We know the G-Man. I choose to take the scene literally and assume that Busey is so insane that he’s actually immune to fire.
For your sake and his - do not approach him. What I’m saying is that the villains get short shrift in Lethal Weapon. I suppose you could argue that we know all we need to - one’s crazy, one’s crazy badass, and they both want our heroes dead. On the upside, what this mildly destructive narrative forfeiture allows us to have is a well fleshed out pair of sympathetically flawed action heroes who live in a world that actually kind of resembles ours. The only real criticisms I can level at Lethal Weapon are that the bad guys are written so thin as to be borderline comical, but it is at the expense of a truly engaging A-story surrounding the relationship between the two heroes.
Oh, yeah. I said I had “criticisms”, meaning more than one.
This one feels unfair, but I’m going to stick by it because it’s valid. Riggs’ psychology figures into this story big time, and it’s interesting how thoroughly the police department fails to take his obvious mental illness seriously. Do you remember the scene with Riggs and the pistol, and how unequivocally poignant I said it was? Lethal Weapon really does a great job of establishing - on a dramatic level - that Riggs has a serious and undeniable mental health issue. And while the film does not play it for laughs (you know, the way the sequels do), it kind of bothered me the way his colleagues treat it like a case of flatulence that’s bad enough to gossip about, but not enough to risk confrontation.
Maybe this was an intentional decision, meant to provide added contrast to Murtaugh’s generosity and thereby enhance the relationship. But anytime a cop loses a spouse, you’d think that would be a red flag. An already difficult job can be made made more so by losing the person who, for many, is the rock in their lives. This is clearly true of Riggs, and for all the effort Lethal Weapon puts into highlighting this, it’s all the more depressing the way the majority of his co workers turn their backs on him. At times, this callousness contributes to a slight unevenness in tone. In fact, the department psychologist even points out to Riggs’ boss how someone in this condition might have an especially hard time with the holidays, and the man’s response is:
“Well if he offs himself, we’ll know you were right.”
Did I say this universe resembles ours? I guess it does, except that God is dead, and his love has clearly died with him.
But hey, come on. These are small complaints in light of the fact that Lethal Weapon holds up well enough to still be among the highlights of the Buddy Cop Flick genre. It’s the relationship between the main characters, and how layered it is, that truly drives the film. Richard Donner, the man who made Christopher Reeve a household name, was an ideal pairing with Black’s distinctive writing. Donner’s laid back, humane approach lends itself well to letting good scripts breathe, and good actors act. But I’ve taken enough of your time. We’ve both got 44 Hassel-packed episodes of Baywatch Nights to take in. So let me just leave you with this final thought:
Lethal Weapon isn’t just good, it’s good enough that over time I have quadruple dipped it on VHS, DVD, Blu-Ray AND digital. That might not make for good jacket copy, but you can consider it a ringing endorsement.