Lethal Weapon 3
In many ways, the first Lethal Weapon can now be considered a standalone movie due to its raw, gritty nature about a suicidal, psychotic cop who finds his redemption in busting bad guys along with the love and acceptance he receives from the family of his new partner. The transition from those themes to the more jokey, borderline slapstick tone of Part 2 was almost too jarring to be considered acceptable by some people, but mostly due to the creative influence of director Richard Donner, action comedy was now indeed what Lethal Weapon as a series had become, complete with the hard to take seriously South African villains of all things (including one who had killed Riggsâ wife) and the âaddition to the familyâ of Joe Pesci as Leo Getz, a goofball comic relief character whose main purpose is to be slapped around and mistreated by Murtaugh and Riggs. Nonetheless, it took some getting used to (and with villains like that, it should never be thought of as being an actual good movie) so that when we got to the release of Part 3 in 1992, we as viewers were finally settled into the formula at hand as established by the previous movie, where the plots and storylines themselves (including the bad guys and their âmaster plansâ) were pretty much secondary next to the interactions amongst the âfamilyâ themselves, namely the camaraderie between Mel Gibsonâs Martin Riggs and Danny Gloverâs Roger Murtaugh with one thing being for certain that when these two are bickering like an old married couple while on the job, it actually can be pretty damn entertaining. The film begins with the two of them answering the call to a bomb threat in a building with Riggs walking right past the other officers on the scene into the building itself as Murtaugh (apparently getting ready to retire in about a week) reluctantly follows him in. What we then get is some of their inane banter which makes the whole thing comedic rather than tense before Riggs (purposely?) cuts the wrong wire and sets the bomb off as they escape in just the nick of time. Now while this would be a career ender for any law enforcement officers in real life, here our dynamic duo merely get busted down to being patrolmen complete with full uniforms, but it isnât long before they happen upon an armored car robbery which leads to an arrest of a live suspect. The ridiculous connection between this and the main story is that the armored truck robbers already work for a major criminal who pays them well and that the robbery was completely needless and unnecessary albeit for the fact that it puts our heroes on the track of that same major criminal who happens to be an ex cop named Jack Travis (character actor Stuart Wilson in a role that was offered to everybody from Robert DeNiro to Gene Hackman to Michael Keaton only to be turned down for being such a nothing role at which point the decision to put in a respectable character actor become a logical one), whom it turns out to nobodyâs surprise is given a backstory but also no real character development whatsoever save for a philosophy that cops are treated so shitty even after retirement that itâs best to just learn the system while youâre on the force and then use it to your advantage afterwards whether it comes to simply walking into the police station to point blank shoot dead possible snitches or to raid the LAPDâs warehouses and storage areas in order to obtain things that can be sold for profit on the black market, namely guns and ammo that can then be sold back onto the streets and into the hands of teenage gangbangers and other lower criminal elements. Of course, probably knowing that the script was giving him nothing to work with no doubt motivated the actor into giving such a low key performance as the main villain in a Lethal Weapon movie that it might as well have been a CGI computer graphic in the role, failing even to come up with any decent one liners (he should have borrowed one from Gibson and Glover) and making his only truly nasty character trait a heinous little giggle that he uncorks early on. But despite the extremely generic nature of the lead villain (and his henchmen), the fact that he is an ex cop who is ripping off police contraband to sell onto the black market has attracted the attention of Internal Affairs, and this is where the real headline of Part 3 comes into play as Rene Russo officially joins the âfamilyâ as Lorna Cole, an IA cop investigating the case who quickly crosses hairs with Riggs and when Riggs discovers just how tough and badass she is (beating the shit out of several bad guys at once by herself without even breaking a sweat), itâs only a matter of time before you can say Main Love Interest and the fact that this is the only sequel to not ever mention Riggsâ dead wife (a smart move in order to maintain the upbeat tone) pretty much makes it a given that Gibson and Russo are embarking on an onscreen romance that will continue well into the next sequel. As for Pesci, his Leo Getz (besides being a real estate agent now) is reduced to the level of being a mere gofer here, a guy who finds out information and then reports back to our heroes on it, although at least Pesci (who was always gifted and underrated as a comedy performer) does manage to squeeze a few smiles out of the viewer during his limited screentime. But the real dramatics though might very well be credited to Glover as Murtaugh, whom after suffering through a comedy bit where an overweight black female cop develops a crush on him finds himself in his own personal anguish during a stop at a ghetto hamburger stand. By this time the series had developed a motif that had become very well used in the Dirty Harry films where Clint Eastwoodâs Harry Callahan would be out on duty minding his own business only to literally stumble onto an active crime scene through sheer dumb luck (and then happily put down the very unlucky criminal punk involved). Here, while getting a hamburger in the ghetto (with Murtaugh apparently being an old friend of the owner), they happen upon some gangbangers who open fire on the duo with Murtaugh managing to kill one of them in clearly justified self defense. Unfortunately, the dead kid turns out to be a friend of his sonâs(!) which causes Murtaugh to completely lose it (overreacting so much that you would have thought heâd just shot his OWN kid) and become such a blubbering mess that he retreats to his boat and tries to drink himself to death, leading to Riggs paying him a visit and allowing Gibson and Glover to have maybe the single best acted scene in the whole series, a powerful reconciling of Murtaughâs guilt that feels REAL mostly because we all know just how well these two actors really do know each other which clearly comes across onscreen. This also motivates Murtaugh to fire himself up enough to take down the man who put the gun in that kidâs hands while Russo becomes (unlike Pesci) a strong and capable sidekick who can handle herself in action scenes. Among the other regulars, Steve Kahanâs Captain Murphy suddenly finds himself caught up in the action for at least a few minutes (and even chalks up for himself a kill on a henchman) while Mary Ellen Trainorâs Police Psychiatrist starts hovering around Murtaugh when she learns of his anguish the same as she did with Riggs in the first two movies (although neither of them would ever talk to her). Darlene Love, Traci Wolfe and the other members of The Murtaugh clan get their obligatory minimum amount of screen time in (although the original script actually had Riggs engaging in a hush hush secret relationship with Traci Wolfeâs Rianne Murtaugh which would have been something that the series was setting up from Part 1 with her schoolgirl crush on Riggs) and thus all continues to be right in the world of this high gloss buddy cop TV show which was produced for the big screen (although the less said about Shane Blackâs grossly misshapen network TV show of the same concept which reimagined Riggs as a goofy, country boy redneck and Murtaugh as not even being married, the better) but which still contains so much heart, chemistry and camaraderie amongst its main cast that it can actually overcome the weaknesses of its main central story and the lack of any real definition for its bad guys because the series obviously knew that it was our love for these central characters and what it was that went on amongst them that was really more important than any kind of criminals and whatever it was that they were actually plotting to doâŚ
7/10