Lethal Weapon

Lethal Weapon (1987)

Runtime: 117 minutes (the Director's Cut)

Directed by: Richard Donner

Starring: Mel Gibson, Danny Glover, Mitchell Ryan, Gary Busey, Tom Atkins

From: Warner Bros.

I was not planning on watching this tonight but that's how things worked out. I watched it with someone who wanted to see a motion picture and I suggested this as we hadn't seen it in ages and yet we both rate it highly. This was a good decision. We saw the Director's Cut, which was a new experience for us both. The Letterboxd review of it is below:

This was not the plan but earlier today I rewatched this motion picture, one that I had seen before-I have seen all 4 movies, as a matter of fact-but the last time I saw any of them was years ago, which is embarrassing to admit for an action fan such as myself. Note that I saw the Director's Cut, which people in the know say is inferior as most of the footage wasn't really needed in the film. That's the only option I had at the time; it'd be nice if discs offered both versions but that is an uncommon thing, sadly.

Anyhow, I presume most of you are familiar with the pairing of a normal cop in Danny Glover and a crazed cop in Mel Gibson-who you see in one powerful scene has suicidal thoughts-and their investigating of a prostitute who apparently killed herself but it was much more than that (it involves Vietnam, as that as a trope was still alive and well in the late 80's) and they uncover a huge illegal operation, so let me talk about other things instead; while it was nice in the latter chapters to see the Martin Riggs character improve their overall mood due to such things as being around Murtaugh and having a better overall life, but it made the third and fourth movies just not the same as the first two. Then again, here he did Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu moves (expert Rorion Gracie of that famed family worked on this production) years before MMA became popular, and Riggs did not do things like that in the sequels. Here, it was a great contrast between the older cop celebrating his 50th birthday and he has a normal family life vs. the single younger man who lost his wife in an accident a few years ago and he still feels awful about it.

Besides the fantastic job that Glover and Gibson did, the supporting cast was also superb. From Tom Atkins as the father of that prostitute to Mitchell Ryan and Gary Busey as the main villains, I can't complain about any of their performances. The score from Michael Kamen, Eric Clapton and David Sanborn is definitely memorable; it's 80's riffic and people still laugh about “the wailing sax” but for the time period it is appropriate. These days it's nice to see a movie that is shot well, is logically put together in a way where it makes sense and except for the wacky and a little implausible fight at the end (which is still comprehensible) you can see all the action and understand what is going on. There is plenty of action, quality setpieces and the heroes aren't infallible; they are even captured and are rather nastily tortured in one scene.

It seems to still be an influential action movie, even 29 years later. It helped Shane Black become a screenwriting star in his debut and I am glad he's still involved with that (and directing also) to this day. We found out in later years that Mel Gibson playing a borderline psychotic character apparently wasn't a stretch but even with that, I'll always have fond memories of the first two films as they are great.