Lethal Weapon (1987)
★★★★ — Lethal Weapon (1987)
There's a moment early in Lethal Weapon where you realise this isn't going to be just another cop film. Mel Gibson, manic and hollowed-out, puts a gun in his mouth with the casual ease of someone who's thought about it before. It's a gut-punch in the middle of what you expected to be a breezy action romp, and it tells you everything you need to know: this one's got something going on underneath all the car chases and wisecracking. That's why, nearly four decades on, it still holds up as the gold standard of the buddy cop genre.
Gibson's Martin Riggs is a wreck. Genuinely, dangerously unhinged, a man whose grief has curdled into recklessness, and whose death wish makes him either the bravest or the most frightening cop on the force depending on which way you look at it. Danny Glover's Roger Murtaugh is his perfect opposite: settled, sensible, a family man counting down the days to retirement with the quiet dread of someone who knows the job won't let him go that easily. The chemistry between them is immediate and completely believable. They bicker like they've known each other for years, and yet you're watching something form in real time. By the end, you don't just laugh at their sparring. You buy into it fully, the idea that these two would, without hesitation, put themselves in harm's way for each other.
Richard Donner balances the tone with real confidence. He knows when to let the comedy breathe and when to pull the rug out. The plot kicks off as a fairly straightforward drug-related murder case, the kind of thing you've seen plenty of times before, but it gradually becomes something more personal, particularly where Riggs is concerned. His emotional arc gives the film genuine weight that was rare for this sort of genre fare at the time. It would've been easy to play him purely for laughs, the unhinged wildcard whose antics keep things lively. Instead, there's actual pain there, and Gibson commits to it completely. If you've ever enjoyed his unhinged early work, and I wrote about exactly that kind of energy in my reviews of Mad Max and Mad Max 2, you'll see how far he'd grown as a performer by this point, channelling that barely-contained chaos into something far more layered.
And then there's that soundtrack. The saxophone theme is all over this film, drifting through stakeouts and quiet porch scenes and late-night drives, and it shouldn't work as well as it does. But it absolutely does. It's become so synonymous with the film that hearing it now is like bumping into an old mate. It doesn't feel like background music. It feels like part of the story.
The action is sharp and inventive, the one-liners land without feeling forced, and Murtaugh's domestic life provides a warm, grounding counterpoint to Riggs' chaos. The suburban sequences could've felt like padding, but they give the film somewhere to breathe. You care about what Murtaugh has to lose, which makes the threat feel real.
Is it flawless? No. The villains are functional rather than memorable, and some of the plotting in the middle stretch is a touch mechanical. But those are minor complaints against a film that does almost everything it sets out to do with style and genuine heart. Lethal Weapon didn't just help define the buddy cop formula, it set a bar that most films in the genre have spent the years since trying and largely failing to clear. I went straight to Lethal Weapon 2 after rewatching this, which tells you everything about how it leaves you feeling.
Four stars. Crack it open on any Saturday night and you'll be reminded why some films just work.
Rating: ★★★★ | Year: 1987 | Watched: 2025-08-30
Where to watch
Watch in the UK
Rent: Apple TV Store · Amazon Video · Google Play Movies · Sky Store
Buy: Apple TV Store · Rakuten TV · Amazon Video · Google Play Movies
Physical: Amazon UK · Zavvi
Watch in the US
Rent: Amazon Video · Apple TV Store · Google Play Movies · YouTube
Buy: Amazon Video · Apple TV Store · Google Play Movies · YouTube
Physical: Amazon US
Affiliate disclosure: Movies With Macca may earn a small commission on purchases or subscriptions started via these links. It costs you nothing extra.
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)
