Retro Cinema: Lethal Weapon 2

We're back, we're bad, you're black, I'm mad!

That about sums it up.

When I mentioned that I'd be writing about this series, I was surprised by how many friends cited Lethal Weapon 2 as their favorite. It's an extremely entertaining film, but for me, it doesn't pack anywhere near the impact of the original. There's much to love about this sequel, and Mel Gibson and Danny Glover ooze chemistry once again, but I do have some issues with it.

The way the original was set up, a sequel was hardly necessary. The Riggs character had an immensely satisfying arc, and no longer wants to die. The "suicidal hero" element was the main hook of the original, so taking it away presents what must have been a real problem for screenwriter Jeffrey Boam. It's sort of like being told you have to write a Robocop movie where Robocop is no longer a robot. The best part of the original essentially had to be removed. If LW2 opens with Riggs inexplicably suicidal again, you're making an action movie about coping with depression. If it opens with Riggs upbeat and completely sane, the character will be watered down and disappointing. Boam does a pretty good job of keeping the Riggs character edgy and off-balance, but that batshit crazy quality Riggs had in the first one is sorely missed here. And, it must be noted, it's in even shorter supply later in the series.

Side note -- how would you like to have been Jeffrey Boam in the summer of 1989? The dude had two of the most beloved action sequels of all time in theaters within two months of each other (He also wrote Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade)! I had written a whole paragraph here wondering what ever happened to Boam -- a hell of a screenwriter who was brought back for LW3. Turns out he passed away in the year 2000 from heart failure. So let me just raise a glass to Boam -- he wrote the wonderful and little-seen Dustin Hoffman film Straight Time in the seventies, and followed that up with an incredible run in the eighties -- The Dead Zone, Innerspace, The Lost Boys, Funny Farm, Last Crusade, and LW2. What a resume!

Lethal Weapon 2 opens smack in the middle of a car chase, which I loved. No explanation -- boom -- you're in the thick of it. The chase concludes with Riggs and Murtaugh finding a car trunk full of South African gold, and the story is underway. It's unfortunate that not one of the Lethal films has a truly classic bad guy a la Hans Gruber in Die Hard. They're dealing in LW2 with South African drug dealers who dig Apartheid, so kudos to the filmmakers for at least bringing a political touch to the proceedings. The weakest link in the Lethal series is the villains, but these Bond-esque bad guys are probably the best Riggs and Murtaugh faced.

Now let's talk about the addition of mob accountant/informant Joe Pesci as Leo Getz. I love Pesci, I really do. I'm just not sure why they felt they needed to insert such an overpowering supporting character into the follow-up to such a highly effective film. Had they introduced Getz in LW3, that would have made more sense to me. Movie franchises work like sitcoms -- if things start getting stale, bring in a wacky new character. But this series was firing on all cylinders heading into LW2. Pesci has some very funny moments here, with his "They F**K you at the drive-thru!" rant a classic, but he gets in the way of the beautiful, effortless chemistry that Gibson and Glover have.

The three of them play wonderfully off of each other, don't get me wrong, and yet -- I just wanted to be alone with Riggs and Murtaugh. It's a lot like when you're a kid and you and your best friend are inseparable. And then your friend gets a new friend, and suddenly every time you do anything the new guy's there, and you never really get back the magic that made the original friendship so special. We never get a chance to further explore the fascinating Riggs/Murtaugh relationship set up in the original film, because every time it starts to engage you, Pesci bursts in and starts in with the "okay okay okays." I'm sure they didn't expect to make four of these movies, but in hindsight, bringing Pesci in later on in the series would have given us more Riggs/Murtaugh gold, and it would have helped to ease how annoying Pesci got as the Lethal films went along. I feel like I might be in the minority here, I've just never been a "more the merrier" kind of guy, and since the franchise was far from broke, why "fix" it?

Another problem here is the love story, which is beyond weak, even by action movie standards. Obviously Patsy Kensit is a beautiful woman, but she's not much of an actress. Even worse, she's a terrible match for Riggs. Say what you will about LW3 and LW4, but compare the off-the-charts chemistry of Gibson and Rene Russo to the complete void we have here. It's no contest. The Gibson/Kensit courtship starts at the hour mark. He harasses her in a grocery store, they share a beer and several bouts of intercourse (complete with a canine voyeur -- kinky!), and then she's dead. And the audience couldn't care less. Really, the only reason Kensit is in the thing is to die, which allows Gibson to experience some of that old school loss n' anger audiences responded so strongly to in the original. And Gibson would have had that anger anyway, without the Kensit "romance," because we're given a scene where one of the bad guys reveals a secret about his connection to Gibson's deceased wife.

The humor quotient is upped considerably in LW2, but it never feels forced. For example, the scene with Glover's family and Gibson on the couch watching television is so entertaining, I can't help but wonder why there isn't more of that dynamic here. Am I alone in thinking this gang would make one hell of a road trip movie? Pack them all into a bus, Little Miss Sunshine - style and let the laughs roll. When Riggs and Murtaugh's family sit down to watch the television debut of Murtaugh's daughter, the surprise twist provides what might be the biggest laugh of the series, made even greater by the handyman's remark ("I liked it! She made me want to go out and buy rubbers right now!"), Riggs' stifled laughter, and the kicker -- the "tree" on Murtaugh's desk.

The film is wildly entertaining, sure, but it just didn't grab me like the original. There's some great stuff in here -- Murtaugh sitting on the bomb-rigged toilet, the exploding diving board, etc. -- but it's all just...stuff. As I stressed yesterday, it's the character development that set Lethal Weapon in a class by itself. It's the lack of that development that makes Lethal Weapon 2 just another action movie -- albeit a pretty great one.