Lethal Weapon

Lethal Weapon; action, USA, 1987; D: Richard Donner, S: Mel Gibson, Danny Glover, Gary Busey, Mitchell Ryan, Darlene Love, Tom Atkins, Traci Wolfe

Numerous heroin smugglers, remnants of former paramilitaries from the Vietnam War, have found their sanctuary in Los Angeles. Among the police officers who are trying to arrest them is the African-American Roger Murtaugh who gets a new partner, Martin Riggs. Roger is a family man averse to action, but it turns out that Martin is his exact opposite, a hysterical, unpredictable and suicidal cop who still has trouble coping with the death of his wife in a car accident. Despite their contradictions, the two of them will become great partners. The bad guys kidnaps Roger's daughter, but Martin eliminates the villain.

Ultra-fast action film, "Lethal Weapon" is a successful and well made mainstream product, as well as a commercial one since it grossed solidly at the box office. Crammed with chases, shooting and humor, where rhythm is more important than the plot, and snappy dialogues by screenwriter Shane Black, this "buddy cop" film will not leave many indifferent and not amused, especially thanks to a dynamic interaction between Danny Glover and Mel Gibson as Murtaugh and Riggs. This is one of the cinematic bastions of the 80s—the aesthetic cinematography dazzles with crystal clear images, and several situations are highly unusual and unpredictable. In one near the opening act, cop Riggs is captured by a criminal who holds him at gunpoint, but Riggs actually encourages the cops around him to shoot him anyway. 

In another, when the police is securing the ground because a man threatens to jump off from the top of the building, Riggs climbs up, handcuffs said man and then jumps with him (!) together. Another comical sequence in the shooting range has Murtaugh showing off by shooting at a paper target, revealing a bullet hole in the middle of the paper head, but Riggs tops it when he just shoots six more rounds, brings the paper target closer, and thus reveals that he made a "smiley" face around Murtaugh's original bullet hole. However, "Lethal Weapon" has some plot holes—it's not clear what the villains want from Hunsaker, to scare him or to kill him, since by killing his daughter they lost all ability to blackmail him, and they could have killed him before he talked to Murtaugh—and the final act is much weaker, featuring sadism and some cheap 'hard boiled' elements that are occasionally bothersome (when the bad guy is torturing Gibson's Riggs with electricity), whereas Riggs' final fight is banal. Nontheless, "Lethal Weapon" flows so smoothly than one can forgive even its weaker moments.

Grade:+++