Lethal Weapon 1987 Film Starring Mel Gibson
A Reckless Cop is Partnered with Aging Officer Danny Glover
Sep 15, 2009
Martin Riggs and Roger Murtaugh are two very unlikely partners. Riggs is reckless and suicidal whilst Murtaugh is a 50-year-old officer with a wife and three children. They are given the task of finding out who murdered a friend’s daughter, which leads them to a heroin smuggling operation.
Lethal Weapon's Plot and Characters
Roger Murtaugh (Danny Glover) and his family are celebrating his 50th birthday, and he is just now starting feel his age. He receives a message from an old friend and Vietnam buddy Michael Hunsacker (Tom Atkins) whom he hasn’t seen for 12 years. Later whilst investigating a suicide, Murtaugh is horrified to discover that the victim is Hunsacker’s daughter Amanda. At the same time Martin Riggs (Mel Gibson), consumed by grief due to his wife’s recent death, becomes increasingly reckless as he struggles with his suicidal tendencies and nearly kills a disarmed suspect after a drug raid.
Tired of his unstable behaviour, Riggs’ superior transfers him to Murtaugh’s unit and the pair become very reluctant partners.
During Amanda’s autopsy it is discovered that the drugs she was taking were laced with drain cleaner and if she hadn’t committed suicide then she would have died within moments anyway. This revelation turns her suicide into a murder investigation. They begin to realise that Amanda’s murder was a small piece of a much larger operation which involve former mercenaries and hired killers controlled by Peter McAllister (Mitchell Ryan) and his enforcer Mr. Joshua (Gary Busey).
The investigation gets messy when Murtaugh’s family find themselves in the sights for McAllister and the ruthless Joshua.
One of the Original Buddy Movies
Lethal Weapon was one of the first films of its kind. Both Gibson and Glover are perfectly cast in their respective roles. Gibson effortlessly portrays the on-the-edge Riggs, who is clearly waiting for someone to either kill him or has a special hollow-point bullet prepared for the time when he decides to blow his own head off. Glover is the reluctant partner who cannot believe that Riggs can be so reckless.
There is a spectacular example of this during a scene in which Riggs handcuffs himself to a jumper (a man preparing to commit suicide by jumping off a building) and after the guy threatens to jump Riggs leaps off.
Gibson and Glover have great onscreen chemistry and it is easy to see why Lethal Weapon spawned 3 sequels and started the cop-buddy genre. There have been many similar stories but the Lethal Weapon Franchise was the series that really started it all. The action sequences are all impressive and Busey is on top form as the totally ruthless and fanatically loyal Mr Joshua. Busey is always cast as the bad guy but that is because he plays them so well and so convincingly.
Lethal Weapon is arguably the best of the series and is not only about hunting down bad guys but a man coming back from the brink. Murtaugh slowly learns to trust Riggs and even though the pair are completely mismatched they do develop a mutual respect and a close friendship.
The title itself is a play on words because Mel Gibson is a former Special Forces operative and is the lethal weapon. The brutal fight sequences and chemistry between Glover and Gibson set the standard that every other cop-buddy film (including its own sequels) have been measured. Over the years Lethal Weapon may (arguably) have been equalled but has never been outdone.
9/10
One of the first films of its kind and is as easily as brilliant now as it was then.
Any self respecting action-comedy fan that has not seen it should drop everything immediately and watch it.
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