Lethal Weapon

The film opens with a panoramic aerial shot of Los Angeles, where a beautiful blonde girl in a penthouse apartment is lying, in a sexy white satin nightgown, on a luxurious red sofa... Drugs comes into focus on a table next to her...

She rouses herself to sniff some white powder, steps out (completely unbalanced) onto the balcony and stands on the railing, ready to plunge peacefully down...

Mel Gibson is remarkable as Martin Riggs... He is talented as both a cop and a clown... His character carries a great level of tension... He is both charismatic and enigmatic... Riggs is a homicide detective suffering harmful levels of stress, after losing his wife in an automobile accident... He seems unstable... He slaps and pummels a drug dealer in the manner of the "Three Stooges," and dares his hostage taker to shoot him...

He is on the brink of despair... He takes out a bullet, loads it in his .9 millimeter Beretta, puts the gun into his mouth, and appears ready to pull the trigger...

He is suicidal... He snaps a handcuff on a jumper's wrist, and snaps the other end onto his own wrist... Then he holds up the key to the cuffs, and flings it out into space...

He is a sharpshooter... He raises his gun and fires without blinking, and claims that killing is "the only thing he could ever do well."

He is partnered with a black middle-aged police detective to investigate the death of the girl that leaped off the balcony... Both quickly build up a strong friendship that lead them to uncover a very dangerous heroin ring...

Danny Glover is at his best against an actor who can easily steal scenes... He plays an old-fashioned detective who is obsessed about his age, and goes by the book... We simply see him scanning, reading the odds...

Murtaugh - on his 50th birthday - wears his past like a scar... He is a conservative family man who has to follow Riggs' hurtful plan to get his daughter back...

Gary Busey plays Mr. Joshua, a trained expert killer, cool as ice, deadly calm... It's essential for him to find out how much the police know... He tries his best to get Riggs out of the picture... His boss the General (Mitch Ryan) is a rugged man with eyes like chips of stone... The ruthless general thinks that it's now the precise time to turn up the heat... He wants Murtaugh to be tortured... He kidnaps Murtaugh's little girl, the gorgeous Rianne (Traci Wolfe) to make him speak...

Richard Donner's 'Lethal Weapon' is one of the finest films to offer its audience the combination of strong acting, and scenes out of hell... It is an exciting cop drama cleverly constructed... The final battle, where the two cops team up against the general and his henchmen, is especially thrilling... Donner's film also skates around the sexual implications of male bonding, but the scene in which Gibson and Glover are captured by the crooks and tortured dramatizes male vulnerability in a manner that became familiar in the action film...

I've seen Lethal Weapon over 100 times and it just keeps getting better! Mel Gibson plays a crazed cop who teams up with a family cop (Danny Glover). At first, they can't stand each other, but as the movie rolls along, they end up with this type of bond. I'm sure that most people or everyone has seen this wonderful movie. It has plenty of action and violence. I love the chemistry between Mel Gibson and Danny Glover. And who could forget, Gary Busey, Mr. Joshua, a VERY fitting role for the wonderful actor. He couldn't have been replaced for that role. No one could have done a better job than Busey. Go Gary! I love the end! One of the best fitting scenes in film history. I also admire Gibson and Busey doing their own stunts, and studying martial arts, just to make 4 nights of filming a cult fighting scene for this excellent movie. This one is definitely a winner! If you haven't seen this superb film, then I STRONGLY recommend that you do! Great film!

This movie is an onslaught of action; beginning with the opening scene death to the captivating end, it's a bombardment of epic scenes and high emotions. The plot is okay but what definitively stands out is Mel Gibson's performance.

From start to finish, Martin Riggs (Mel Gibson) makes you feel excited just watching him. Whether it's with his psychotic bouts, unique demeanour or deep moments, his presence adds an energy to this movie that makes it both fun and insane (in a good way). His quality acting in Lethal Weapon is surely some of the best in cinema.

Besides the amazing casting, the overall story is mediocre. In this film, though, it's the acting that makes it special. There are so many aspects to entertainment, and Lethal Weapon hit the mark with Mel as the lead.

Lethal Weapon is a nearly perfectly structured action movie. The acting, the story, the script, the directing, even the IDEA of the movie all combine to make up a fascinating and thrill-packed police film. The cross-cutting at the beginning of the film was particularly effective, in my opinion, as Martin Riggs (Mel Gibson) and Roger Murtaugh (Danny Glover) are introduced. The startling difference between their separate lives provides for tons of fun to be had later in the movie. Roger starts his day off as the family man reluctantly celebrating his 50th birthday party with his numerous children and his loving wife in the big family house, while Riggs is shown waking up naked in his trashy trailer and beginning his day with a healthy breakfast of a cigarette and a beer.

The fact that both Roger and Riggs hated that they had to work together was especially effective in creating a touching atmosphere as they grew to be closer and closer friends. They worked so well together in this movie; it was a symbiotic relationship. It was almost like they fed off of each other, and kept each other in line and out of trouble. I also liked the way that they showed that Riggs was deeply angered when he learned that the bad guys had taken Murtaugh's daughter. Things like this, when done right, can really get you to sit up and really get into the movie, and it was definitely done right here. Riggs was also very amusing in his anxiousness about being a cop (`Why don't you let me go to sleep?' `No, come on, we gotta get up and catch bad guys!'), and Gary Busey delivers an excellent performance as the lead bad guy. This is the type of role that he plays best (see "Under Siege").

Although the violence was painfully present in some parts (the torture scenes were short but extremely difficult to watch), the film never relied on violence to pull it along or keep the audience's attention. The story was sufficient enough so that there was no overindulgence necessary in anything like that. In this film you see the first of the now traditional Lethal Weapon scenes in which Riggs and Murtaugh stagger away from a smoking crime scene, seeming to hold each other up. The final fight scene between Riggs and Mr. Joshua (Busey) was a little excessive, and there were a few scenes which were a bit faulty (how did the guy on the building ledge expect to kill himself when there was such a huge air bag inflated on the ground directly below him?), but overall this was a spectacular crime thriller. The movie rushes along at a feverish pace, and particularly Gibson's and Glover's success working together on screen make this a timeless action film that is not to be missed.

LETHAL WEAPON (1987) ***1/2 Mel Gibson, Danny Glover, Gary Busey, Mitchell Ryan, Tom Atkins, Darlene Love, Traci Wolfe. One of the best action/comedy/buddy films of all time with Gibson as suicidal loose cannon maverick cop Martin Riggs mismatched with partner Roger Murtaugh (Glover in one great comic role), who is constantly reminded of his age and the danger he's constantly in: solving a drug-linked homicide of Murtaugh's friend's daughter. Busey is memorable as an albino mercenary, Mr. Joshua, unsusceptible to pain. Some great stunts and lots of thrills thanks to helmsman Richard Donner (who also directed the sequels).