“I got 8 days to my retirement, and I will NOT make a stupid mistake!”

1992 brought Lethal Weapon 3 to theaters, promising more Riggs & Murtaugh antics, which should never be a bad thing. Time for the Director’s Cut.

Plot
So Roger Murtaugh is eight days away from retirement and very, very, very aware of the danger that means to a buddy cop such as himself. So of course he & Riggs screw up royally in a bomb defusing situation and get busted down to patrolmen, where they stumble on a gunrunning scheme that’s putting a lot of high powered “cop killer” ammunition and guns in the hands of the LA street gangs (which restores them to sergeant status). Car chases, big explosions, buddy cop banter and shootouts ensue.

Characters
Sergeant Martin Riggs: Mel Gibson’s character is now trying to quit smoking, so in desperation he resorts to dog biscuits, displacing his addiction onto them. Its funnier than how I explain it. His whole arc is about starting a relationship with a new woman, finally having coped with (and avenged) his wife’s death.

Sergeant Roger Murtaugh: Danny Glover’s character provides some fun meta-commentary on the old cop movie cliché of the guy who’s “one week away from retirement.” Then he goes and shoots a gang kid in self defense who happened to be his son’s friend and falls into a guilt-ridden depression. Character development!

Leo Getz: Joe Pesci returns, only this time as a real estate agent for the Murtaughs’ who are trying to sell their house after Roger retires. Again, he’s a largely unwanted sidekick, but provides some useful information.

Detective Lorna Cole: Rene Russo plays an Internal Affairs officer looking into how the heavy firepower is getting onto the streets. She gets involved in the case with our heroes, then she gets involved with Riggs in particular, if you know what I mean. She also gets to kick some serious ass in the film, so why not, she’s the badass.

Jack Travis: Stuart Wilson is our bad guy, a cop gone rogue who’s running a massive gun smuggling racket because he wants to… wants to… get back at the police force for some reason? It’s been a little while since I saw it, but I’m really drawing a blank here on his motivation. That’s not a good sign in a villain. Though in his defense, he’s a very hands-on kind of villain who does his own dirty work.

Visuals/Effects
Richard Donner again, but this time with Jan de Bont as cinematographer. It’s a Lethal Weapon movie, so we get a lot of finely done action sequences. The shootout at the end is particularly memorable because it involves a construction site being lit on fire.

Writing
Jeffrey Boam and Robert Mark Kamen on screenplay & story duty with Shane Black getting credit for the characters. The movie hits all the right notes to qualify as a Lethal Weapon movie: witty character banter, simple villains you enjoy seeing get their comeuppance, the occasional heavy-handed social commentary and so on, but while the script gets more right than it does wrong (Riggs & Murtaugh are so fun that I just don’t really care about the “villain of the week” in these movies) there isn’t all that much that’s impressive from a storytelling standpoint. Happily, the “blowing stuff up” standpoint gets top marks.

Sound
Michael Kamen, Eric Clapton & David Sanborn are joined by Elton John on the score, which yields some pretty fun results. We also get songs by Eric Clapton, Elton John, Boyz II Men and Cypress Hill. It’s a pretty good spread.

Conclusion
Curiously, these Lethal Weapon reviews are relatively short, largely because I don’t have any reason to tear them to pieces or raise them up onto a pedestal. I’m also repeating myself a lot, like when I say this: Lethal Weapon 3 is a fun action movie with some great set pieces and entertaining characters, though it’s not a particularly original or transcendent film. So far, I’d say Lethal Weapon 3 was the runt of the litter.

“I'm gonna die on a toilet, aren't I?”

Lethal Weapon was a big hit, so 1989 brought a sequel, the aptly named Lethal Weapon 2. I’ve got nothing else to add here so let’s get to the Director’s Cut.

Plot
So Riggs & Murtaugh start off in a car chase that ends in a crash and the discovery that the perp’s car was full of South African Krugerrands (coins illegal in the US at the time). After some mysterious threats to the Murtaugh family, the team end up running witness protection to a federal witness who’s going to rat out a South African drug smuggling ring hiding behind the consulate in Los Angeles, (remember, this was during Apartheid). Buddy cop antics ensue.

Characters
Sergeant Roger Murtaugh: Danny Glover seems to get the bulk of the character development in this movie, what with having his family threatened by bad guys. Again. Except its worse this time, since they break into his home several times and they’re eeeeeeeviiiiillll South African racists. Still, by the end of the movie, Murtagh proves himself to be quite the badass with his revolver.

Sergeant Martin Riggs: Mel Gibson is starting to heal from the loss of his wife, but then he finds out that one of the South Africans is a hired killer and was responsible for Riggs’ wife’s death in an “accident” that was meant for him. I’m not sure if that’s a plot hole or not, but whatever. He wants to get some vengeance for that.

Leo Getz: Joe Pesci turns in an interesting performance as a weasely, foul-mouthed white collar criminal who’s first on the list for the smugglers to wipe off since he’s going to testify. He becomes an unwanted sidekick for our heroes with some funny bits.

Arjen Rudd: Joss Ackland (who’s deep bass voice has been in a lot of movies and tv shows) is the smug and corrupt South African minister of diplomatic affairs for the LA Consulate, and DAMN he is a real bastard who waves around his diplomatic immunity like it was a sparkler on the Fourth of July. Only, he wouldn’t do that because he’s not American and… Okay, simile over.

Pieter Vorstedt: Derrick O’Connor is Rudd’s right hand man, and a real bastard himself. He’s the guy who killed Riggs’ wife.

Rika van den Haas: Patsy Kensit is Rudd’s blonde bombshell secretary who is the only not-evil South African in the film. She doesn’t agree with Rudd’s stances and doesn’t know he’s a drug smuggler. She also draws Riggs’ attention because, well, she’s hot. The relationship doesn’t really end well.

Visuals/Effects
Director Richard Donner & cinematographer Stephen Goldblatt again and visually we get a lot more of what the first movie established. Car chases, gunfights, occasional helicopter stuff and explosions (and various combinations thereof). Not very deep, but its well shot and fun to watch, so mission accomplished.

Writing
Shane Black & Warren Murphy on Story, Jeffrey Boam on Screenplay. The story is…a bit odd to say the least. First, it paints a significantly unflattering light on all white South Africans as either moustache-twirling villains or clueless/powerless to do anything. Look, Apartheid was an awful, awful system, but the lack of subtlety about it here is…not so much surprising as it is disappointing. The villains are pretty weak in this film compared to the last one, which is a shame, considering the character development done with Riggs & Murtaugh. It feels a bit like a very dark (and things do get surprisingly dark at points) R rated after school special in its message.

Still, the movie has some very bright spots, like the absolutely hilarious-yet-tense toilet bomb scene.

Sound
Michael Kamen & Eric Clapton joined by David Sanborn. The music is fine in general and includes quite a few songs by the Skyliners among other things.

Conclusion
Lethal Weapon 2 is an entertaining ride, but its also somewhat weighed down by trying to make some serious social commentary on institutional racism in South Africa and this isn’t the right kind of movie for that kind of effort. I mean, its got a toilet bomb for crying out loud! Not quite as recommended as the first, but it does continue the adventures of Riggs & Murtaugh, and that’s always a fun time.

“Now we question him. You know why we question him? Because I got him in the leg. I didn't shoot him full of holes or try to jump off a building with him.”

Remember how I was late to the Die Hard party? Same thing for Lethal Weapon, which is curious, because it involves director Richard Donner and writer Shane Black, both of whom have contributed to my considerable cinematic enjoyment over the last year. Let’s hope that hot streak continues with 1987’s Lethal Weapon, Director’s Cut.

Plot
So, it’s the holidays in LA, and a topless woman hopped up on cocaine falls to her death from an apartment building. MERRY CHRISTMAS! Turns out she was the daughter of a fairly influential army veteran who’s got a friend on the LAPD. That cop, a 20 year veteran who likes to play by the book happens to be assigned a new partner, a younger, suicidally reckless widower with a mullet. Together, they start investigating the death and discover that it might not have been a suicide after all. Can these two cops with opposite personalities learn how to become buddies? Well, yes, obviously. It’s a buddy cop movie.

Characters
Sergeant Martin Riggs: Mel Gibson is in full-on damaged goods mode as a cop on the edge with nothing to lose. Served in Vietnam, then joined the LAPD, he was a good cop until his wife died in a car accident a few years back. Now he lives in a trailer by the ocean with his dog and hires prostitutes to sit at home and watch The Three Stooges with him because he’s lonely. He’s also a gun-toting badass that’s been labeled a “Lethal Weapon” (DUN DUN DUN) by police psychologists.

Sergeant Roger Murtaugh: Danny Glover is a cop who’s a family man and 20 year veteran of the force and gets a new partner assigned to him on his 50th birthday. Guess who that is? Murtaugh is the voice of reason, by-the-book, slightly old fashioned half of the partnership. He also served in Vietnam.

Michael Hunsacker: Tom Atkins (who was the sheriff in the mostly lackluster My Bloody Valentine 3-D) is an old military buddy of Murtaugh’s. It’s also his daughter who fell out of the window at the beginning of the movie. He knows a bit more than he lets on.

General Peter McAllister: Mitchell Ryan is our Villain. The commander of a special forces unit called “Shadow Company” he decided to take his team rogue and go into cocaine smuggling business.

Mr. Joshua: Gary Busey is McAllister’s right hand henchman, and described as an albino (though not really). He’s, uh, got a pretty high pain tolerance. That’s about it as far as character development.

Visuals/Effects
Richard Donner and cinematographer Stephen Goldblatt deliver an impressive looking action movie. Yes, its very much an 80s cop movie, but its got quite a few memorable sequences, particularly the early scenes of Riggs behaving insane in the tour of duty (like taking out a sniper with a handgun and taking the quick way down with a ledge jumper).

Writing
Shane Black on script duty, and things work great. It's got great character development for the leads. The villains are kind of…there but they are suitably hateable. There’s a lot of wit involved and you really get to like the characters.

Sound
Original music by Michael Kamen and Eric Clapton, so it's quite good. There’s also quite a few Christmas songs like “Jingle Bell Rock.”

Conclusion
Lethal Weapon is a legitimately good time. Nothing particularly earthshaking, but it’s an effective character-driven buddy cop action movie. On par with Die Hard.