Lethal Weapon (1987)
★★★★ — Lethal Weapon (1987)
Richard Donner directed Lethal Weapon in 1987 off the back of The Goonies (1985) and Superman (1978), by which point he was one of Hollywood's most reliable hands with large-scale, crowd-pleasing material. The screenplay came from Shane Black, who was in his early twenties and reportedly sold the script for $250,000, a significant sum for an unproduced writer at the time. Warner Bros. and Joel Silver's production company backed the film at a modest $15 million, a figure that looks fairly restrained given the scale of the action sequences. It arrived at a moment when the buddy-cop formula was already familiar, but the pairing of Mel Gibson (then fresh from the Mad Max films) and Danny Glover gave the genre a new template that much of the following decade would borrow from, consciously or otherwise.
Lethal Weapon is the gold standard of buddy cop films. It's tough, funny, and surprisingly heartfelt, all wrapped in a slick 80s package with one of the best sax-heavy soundtracks you’ll ever hear. Mel Gibson’s wild-man cop with a death wish and Danny Glover’s soon-to-be-retired family man make the perfect mismatched pair. Their chemistry is instant, the kind that feels lived-in from the first sarcastic remark. You laugh at their bickering, but you also believe they’d take a bullet for each other, because, well, one of them kinda wants to. It’s not just action and one-liners (though there are plenty of both). The plot starts as a straightforward drug-fuelled murder mystery but slowly unravels into something more personal, especially for Riggs. His grief and recklessness give the film real emotional weight, which was rare for the genre at the time. Meanwhile, Murtaugh’s suburban life and constant “I’m too old for this shit” routine ground everything in something real. Director Richard Donner balances the tone perfectly, tense when it needs to be, silly when it can afford to be. And that saxophone theme is just the icing on the cake. It plays over stakeouts, car chases, quiet moments on the porch, it’s basically a character in itself. Lethal Weapon helped define the buddy cop formula, and it still holds up. Not flawless, but damn close.
Rating: ★★★★ | Year: 1987 | Watched: 2025-08-30
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Related on Movies With Macca
More from Richard Donner: Lethal Weapon 2 (1989)
More with Mel Gibson: Lethal Weapon 2 (1989) · Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985) · Mad Max 2 (1981) · Mad Max (1979)
More from the 1980s: Nightmare City (1980) · A Better Tomorrow (1986) · Style Wars (1983) · Garlic Is as Good as Ten Mothers (1980)
More action: A Better Tomorrow (1986) · The General (1926) · Hand of Death (1976) · Daredevil (2003)
More thriller: Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) · Angst (1983) · The Long Walk (2025) · Punishment Park (1971)
