Rank the Lethal Weapon Films

Rank the lethal weapon films

#1 LW4 A slightly difficult choice between this and part 2. Renee Russo doesn’t get to do much besides be pregnant and get tied up, here. But the addition of Chris Rock and Jet Li make this a crazy everything-plus-the-kitchen-sink endeavor. (Two pregnant women? Rianne’s husband is Butters? Why not?) The intro action sequence allegedly was shot because a full script had yet to be done yet, but it works as a basic intro to what Riggs and Murtaugh are about. The undocumented Chinese sweatshop/counterfeit ring plot was flimsy even at the time, but it provides an excuse for Jet Li to get loose throughout the film and give him a splashy intro to American audiences. The interaction between motor-mouths Chris Rock and Joe Pesci is gold.
The moving-truck sequence was incredible. The final firefight and showdown with the Li character was solid when it could have been just plain silly. And a great sendoff for the characters at the end.

#2 LW2
The villains are more generic than Gary Busey and the General from part 1-- but the choice to make them South African smugglers and provide an oblique critique of the country’s Apartheid system was a rather bold move for a major studio film that counted on South Africa for part of its foreign box office marketing. It’s not as if a slam on the Soviet Union circa 1989 was going to have potential backlash at movie theaters over there.
The revelation that Riggs’ wife was killed in retaliation for him getting too close to the South Africans’ smuggling operation was a retcon that smacked of being a little convenient.
Joe Pesci helps make for a great foil for the two of them, it ends up becoming an updated Three Stooges routine by way of an action plot.
The action sequences with the stilt-house and the cargo tanker climax were insane, and a good/bad example of what was to come with action movies.

#3 LW1
The origin story of how Murtaugh and Riggs initially came together isn’t as compelling to me as the two stories above, which comparatively jump right into the main plot. But I appreciated the Christmas setting (snow-free Los Angeles notwithstanding—and didn’t Joel Silver do it again with Die Hard?). As a young teen, Rianne was… exciting to watch.
It seemed like the 80s was rife with ex-Vietnam guys in action movie plots.
Obviously Murtaugh wasn’t set up to be competing with Riggs for women (imagine if Eddie Murphy or Carl Weathers were cast); but in this Cosby era it was cool to see an emotionally stable, professionally competent, middle-class African-American dad as a co-star in this.
The final chase and street fight between Riggs and Busey’s character is inadvertently hilarious to watch in retrospect for all the macho posturing it involves.

#4 LW3
This film had the least interesting villain, to me. Released in the summer of the L.A. Riots, it was arguably timely (or obtuse, for conservatives) to have a plot involving a dirty ex-cop. (Sequences where Riggs and Murtaugh heckle civilians ring somewhat uncomfortably, given real-world events at the time.) The toe-dip into gang problems were kind of given the short-shrift, in retrospect. Eerily, “cop killer” bullets figure into the plot as Ice-T’s rock record of the same name was catching heat from the White House. Murtaugh rightfully acknowledge the genocidal aspect with the gang wars. Rene Russo is solid as the Internal Affairs cop-turned Riggs love interest. The armored car-heist sequence was exciting, as well as the final showdown at the housing development.

More thoughts to come…

"With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility"
Stan Lee, 1962