Lethal Weapon

A classic American buddy cop action movie. Now I’m not sure if this egg came before the chicken, but all’s I know is that this movie is a whole lot of fun. Not unlike THE LAST BOYSCOUT, this film is filled with great one-liners, features a cop on the edge and the whole black-and-white combo thang (of course, both films were written by the same dude, Shane Black, but that’s another story altogether).

So what sets this “action” movie apart from all the rest? Well, in one word: MelGibson. Unlike many other cop movies, here’s a dude who’s extremely vulnerable and a “sad guy”. As an audience member, you quickly identify with the poor sap because he’s lost in the world without his wife (aaaaaaaaaaaahhh!!). Seriously though, Gibson’s attempted suicide scene gets me every time and a lot of that has to do with Mel himself.

In this film, he basically becomes Martin Riggs! He acts like a fuckin’ psycho and we love him for it! He’s quick, he’s funny, he’s good looking, he’s violent… One of my personal favorite scenes is when Riggs wakes up in his trailer, moves to the fridge to get a beer, grabs a smoke and pisses in his toilet while smoking his cigarette and drinking his brew. Yeah, baby….now there’s a REAL MAN!!!

Granted, the film doesn’t feature the most interesting story-line to come across a movie screen, but that doesn’t matter all that much because we’re having a whole bunch of fun watching the chemistry between Glover and Gibson to give much of a shit.

Further kudos go out to my man Gary Busey, who plays a great asshole in the film, the string of christmas songs spread throughout the movie, the action-packed last 20 minutes, the T&A and all of Murtaugh’s “family life” scenes, which gave it all a good perspective.

But you all don’t need me to tell you this because you’ve all probably seen this movie a thousand times already and I guess it goes without saying that the series continued for three films after this (as of 2001).

All in all…a good time!

(c) 2021 Berge Garabedian