Thoughts on Lethal Weapon 4

 

via Giphy

*Riggs (Mel Gibson) earnestly talks with Murtaugh (Danny Glover) about his loss of stamina*
"It's like ..."
"You're getting too old for this shit."
"Yeah."
"How about that? Finally."
"No, I can't be. I mean, I'm only ... Jesus."
"Yeah, you're only. You can't beat the clock, Riggs."

Once again, Thoughts On in the purest sense!

1. I'm watching the Lethal Weapon movies in the strangest order. I started with Lethal Weapon 2 when I did The Films of 1989 and now I'm at Lethal Weapon 4. I don't know if I should see Lethal Weapon 3 or Lethal Weapon itself next, with "next" being some time in the distant future.

2. Lethal Weapon 4, Peter Bart wrote, was rushed into production because Warner Bros. lacked a tentpole release for summer 1998. It's been confirmed that the movie began filming without a completed script. Once again, many people -- at least Channing Gibson, from a story by Jonathan Lemkin, Afred Gough and Miles Millar, and according to TV Tropes, doctors including Carrie Fisher -- all had their pens on the paper.

3. Continuity came from four-timers Mel Gibson, Danny Glover and director Richard Donner, three-timer Joe Pesci and two-timer Rene Russo. We also can't forget Steve Kahan, Darlene Love, Traci Wolfe, Damon Hines, Ebonie Smith and Mary Ellen Trainor. According to Bart, Warner Bros. spent roughly $50 million on the cast. Exactly what Glover, Russo and Jet Li made wasn't revealed, but Pesci got $1 million a week for three weeks work, followed by Chris Rock getting $2 million and Gibson getting $20 million and 17 percent of the movie's gross. 

4. Filming began on Jan. 15, 1998, and ended on Feb. 10, 1998, according to IMDB. The movie wrapped on May 13, also according to IMDB, for a July 10 release. One last comment from The Gross: Richard Donner vowed never again to be on that tight of a schedule.

5. Riggs and Murtaugh open Lethal Weapon 4 with a bit of business that won't mean anything. They foil a villain who's causing a lot of flaming destruction somewhere in Los Angeles. Riggs tricks Murtaugh into stripping to his underwear to create a distraction, and that does get a callback later on, but it's mostly the dialogue that matters. Both Lorna and Rianne Murtaugh are pregnant. Fast forward to almost nine months later. Riggs and Lorna haven't gotten married, and neither have Rianne and the father of her baby. Gee, I wonder who he could be?

6. Riggs, Murtaugh and Leo's fishing trip is ruined when a Chinese ship carrying illegal immigrants gets hostile. Don't you just hate when that happens? Richard Riehle, making his fourth and penultimate appearance in The Films of 1998, mouths off to a clearly very moved Murtaugh.

7. "They sell them as cheap labor." "Sell them?" "Like slaves." "These must be the lucky ones." "They'll claim asylum. Say they were persecuted, like everybody else. We'll send them packing. Cost you and me a goddamn fortune." "What happened to 'Bring me your tired, your poor, your wretched masses, yearning to be free'?" "Now it reads, 'No Vacancies.'" "I guess your parents were Native Americans."

8. Nearly 20 minutes in, it's time to meet Chris Rock as Det. Lee Butters. I've already mentioned that the original characterization for Butters, a late addition character, was that he was a gay guy with a crush on Murtaugh. To be honest, I kept thinking of him that way, even though the actual movie had Butters being Rianne's secret lover. I mean, they seemed to want it both ways, since Murtaugh did think that Butters was attracted to him. On a 1-10 scale, I give the gay panic a 5.

9. Twenty-two minutes in and here's Lorna. She's there to continue the storyline about whether or not Riggs will remarry, reveal to Riggs that Butters is the baby daddy (of Rianne's kid, not hers) and also to set up a meaningless subplot about whether or not Murtaugh's on the take. Meanwhile, Murtaugh's secretly housing a family including Hong (Eddy Ko) and little Ping (Steven Lam). Illegal, yes, but for Murtaugh, it's the chance to personally free some slaves.

10. Riggs & Murtaugh get promoted to captains because nobody will insure the LAPD if they're sergeants. Captain Murphy (Kahan) has an interesting line about the "new-improved police department, guys with guns and psychology degrees, like Butters out there." We can debate how much law enforcement has advanced or regressed over the last two-dozen years. Anyway, there's more of Murtaugh wondering if Butters "likes me likes me" and it's time for the guys to go to Chinatown.

11. Mad TV's "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner '98" is one of my go-to associations with this period of Chris Rock's career. "This brotha's gettin' paid!" declared Phil LaMarr as Chris. The real deal is another recipient of the Acting His Dick Off award, with Pesci closely behind. Speaking of Leo, is his constantly saying "Whatever, whatever" new for this movie? I kept responding by saying "I do what I want!" like Cartman.

12. They just had to have Riggs antagonize Uncle Benny (Ed Chan) by asking about "flied lice," didn't they? Even though Uncle Benny sorta gets the upper hand by calling Riggs a prick (IMDB has it as "plick," but I'm pretty sure he said "prick"), the moment is still worthy of an eyeroll. Asian-American publications and groups, of course, were offended. Entertainment Weekly: "Guy Aoki, cofounder of the Media Action Network for Asian-Americans, says that even beyond the obvious missteps with the ethnic humor, the movie brings up a more basic problem: 'Asian Americans are still waiting to be seen as the good guys.'"

13. Stephen Hunter, Washington Post, complained about the "riffs and racism." Richard Donner, Hunter wrote, "was so proud about his anti-apartheid stand that he did a whole movie about it (Lethal Weapon II) and he festoons this picture with anti-NRA and anti-assault riffle messages (even though he's probably sold more Berettas to the American public than Beretta's actual ad agency)." Donner, in Entertainment Weekly, offered the standard toothless apology for the anti-Asian humor. "Some liberal!" Hunter sniffed.

14. Anyway, the good guys find the captain of the slave ship and chase after him. He gets away, but is killed by Wah Sing Ku (Jet Li, making his debut both in American movies and playing a villain). Ku has an interest in four new arrivals from China, while back at Murtaugh's, he's bonding with Hong. The Chinese characters in this movie, no matter how old they are, come in two varieties: evil or adorable.

15. Riggs and Murtaugh's horrified reaction to Leo and Butters' rapport of sorts -- or at least, mutual lack of inside voices -- as they rant about cell phones (and Leo tries to reprise his "They fuck you at the drive thru" diatribe) matches my own. Different Times: Butters going on about his lack of familiarity with Afghanistan.

16. Yadda-yadda, Riggs & Murtaugh arrive back at the latter's house to find the women being held hostage by Ku and company. Lisa Schwarzbaum particularly disliked that a knife was held to Lorna's belly, calling it and Murtaugh's gay panic "gratuitously nasty." I'm just bummed to see the Murtaugh house go up in flames. It's Ping to the rescue! They all get out in time and Riggs & Murdaugh take to the freeway.

17. I remember seeing the image of the car driving into, through and out of an office building's upper floor in the promos from 1998. But I hadn't thought about that moment until I actually saw it happen. Props to the stunt people, because it looked awesome.

18. A similarly awesome, if a bit silly, scene comes when Riggs, Murtaugh, Butters and Uncle Benny all end up high on laughing gas when the crime figure gets questioned at the dentist. Along the way, Murtaugh finally finds out that no, Butters isn't gay, and yes, he's the father of his grandchild-to-be. Janet Maslin: "Rock helps to make the prospect of further spinoffs look worthwhile." 

19. We've got under 40 minutes to go, and I want to wrap this up, so:

• Hong is reunited with his uncle, the one who tried to ensure the family's passage to America. Fat lot of good it does Hong, who is killed along with the uncle and Uncle Benny.
• It's all part of Ku's scheme with that quartet of immigrants, Triad leaders including his own brother. What goes around comes around, since Ku's brother gets killed once Riggs & Murtaugh reveal that Ku was trying to pay a corrupt general for the Four Fathers with funny money. 
• Roger Ebert: "(The plot is) so impenetrable that at one point the dialogue simply stops to explain it." Hunter: "Why, you ask, as nobody connected with the production ever did, would (the moneychanging) take place on American soil, not Chinese? Possible the movie explains it, possibly it doesn't; who could tell?"
• Murtaugh's not on the take! Trish is the author of the lucrative, tacky Ebony Clarke romance novels.
• Ku's pissed that he lost his brother, and beats the hell outta Riggs. It takes getting impaled and shot with an AK-47, for the bad guy to get defeated.
• That tease that either or both of Riggs & Murtaugh getting killed inspired another big eyeroll. They're fine, and Leo, of all people, delivers the speech that gets Riggs to finally marry Lorna. This was how Pesci closed out his near-decade as an A-to-B-lister:

20. "You know, when I was a kid, I had a pet frog. ... Just give me a second, let me tell you this, okay? Uh, I had this pet frog, his name was Froggy. He was my best friend in the whole world. I didn't have a lot of friends. As a matter of fact ... okay, I had no friends, and uh, I used to kiss the frog, too. I thought maybe, uh, that it would turn into a princess since I was a boy, and uh, it could be my mother. They told me that she left or something, and my father was no bargain, and so just the frog. Froggy was my friend and I really loved him, and I took him everywhere with me, and I was riding on my bike one day and he jumped out of the box, and uh, I ran him over with the back tire. I killed him. I was really heartbroken. Really, he was my best friend in the whole world; the only thing I ever loved. And then I met you and Roger, and you guys really looked after me a lot more then you had to. ... No, no, it's okay, it's okay. You are my family. You are my friends. You are not better friends than Froggy. You're just different, and, uh, I just thought that maybe, that might be relevant. Okay. I'll leave you alone now."

21. Lorna's in labor! She and Riggs are "married" by a passing rabbi (Richard Libertini). As TV Tropes pointed out, this moment has aged uniquely. I did laugh at Leo having Riggs crush a cup that once held a patient's urine sample.

22. Rianne also gave birth, Murphy stops by to anounce that the Hong family won't be deported and we get an ending that's somewhere between an Olive Garden commercial and the current Furious movies.

"Are you all friends?"

"(ten characters in unison) No, we're family!"

Not Recommended.

Thoughts:

-- "On the action-comedy franchise's fourth emergence, star Mel Gibson said, 'This one's in the spirit of the others. It's got a few more yuks and a little more heart.'" -- Bill Higgins, Los Angeles Times

-- "Good News: In September, Danny Glover told me that his Lethal Weapon series is kaput, stopped at four." -- Gene Siskel, recapping 1998.

-- Box Office: Grossing nearly $130.5 million domestically on a budget that Bart claimed was between $120-$125 million, Lethal Weapon 4 opened at No. 1, spent five weekends in the top 10 and came in at No. 11 for 1998.

-- Awards Watch: The cruelest blow had likely came from the Blockbuster Entertainment Awards. Oh, sure, Chris Rock and Rene Russo both won. Rock, in fact, beat Joe Pesci (and Gene Hackman in Enemy of the State). But Mel Gibson and Danny Glover lost the Favorite Action/Adventure Duo Award to Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker in Rush Hour. That had to have solidified for Mel and Danny that time was up for them. Chan, by the way, passed on the role of Ku because he didn't want to play a villain. As for Jet Li, he lost MTV's movie villain award (IMDB says it was to Stephen Dorff in Blade, Wikipedia says it was Matt Dillon for There's Something About Mary). The L.A. freeway and building stunt sequence lost MTV's award for movie action scenes to Armageddon's destruction of Manhattan, while Pesci lost the Razzie to Joe Eszterhas as himself in Burn Hollywood Burn and the script lost at the Stinkers to Godzilla.

-- Awards Watch, Chris Rock: He picked up quite a few nods for Lethal Weapon 4. Along with his Blockbuster Entertainment win, Rock lost at the American Comedy Awards to Bill Murray in Rushmore, the NAACP Image Awards to Morgan Freeman in Deep Impact and the MTV Movie Awards in the Best Comedic Performance category to Adam Sandler in The Waterboy and in the Breakthrough Male category to James Van Der Beek in Varsity Blues.

-- A.V. Club Critic's Corner, the movie: "It's a dead end to a franchise that should have been put to rest two movies ago," Stephen Thompson wrote in 1998. Time didn't improve the perception. "By the time the movie franchise ended (for now) in 1998, it had become increasingly ungainly, running on a jury-rigged assembly of incompatible parts," Noel Murray wrote in 2016. Noel also observed how Lethal Weapon returned to "a motion picture landscape where Quentin Tarantino and John Woo had become the new mainstream (however briefly) and where the Hollywood that produced (the first film) was seen as a relic of Reagan-era decadence." Speaking of then and now, Noel mentioned how "Lethal Weapon 4 feels like a couple of R-rated episodes of a long-running TV show -- made in an era when 'R-rated TV' was barely a thing."

-- Establishment Critic's Corner, the movie: "This 11-year-old series has aged better than most," Maslin wrote. "Though it first emerged as one of the more recklessly violent of action franchises, the Lethal Weapon formula has come to seem substanital, even venerable, beside newer and dopier action-adventures." Schwarzbaum wanted to know if there was "anything that makes the heart leap lower than the prospect of a 1998 vehicle from the Lethal Weapon factory ... Even the Die Hard franchise has more life to it." "If we get the movies we deserve, what have we done to be worthy of Lethal Weapon 4?" Kenneth Turan asked. Turan also said Donner "can't make up for the absence of the kind of surreal flair a virtuoso like John Woo brings to the table." Ebert felt that he was watching nothing but outtakes, "pieced together into a movie that doesn't really, in its heart, believe it is necessary."

-- Critic's Corner, Gibson and Glover: "They're still very attractive men, to be sure, but it's distracting to worry about their coronary health while they're being battered and shot at in the course of a day's work," Schwarzbaum wrote. "Both remain likable but nothing they do could be confused with acting," Hunter declared. His Washington Post colleague, Michael O'Sullivan, wondered, "But honestly, does anyone come to these films to watch (Gibson) act? It's not his conscience that people want to see Mel wrestle with." "(Gibson) seems supremely comfortable with this mixture of charm, kidding, bullying, boyishness and tenderness so well concealed that it's easy to miss," Maslin wrote. Leonard Klady, Variety, collectively appraised the old guard: "Gibson, Glover, Pesci and Russo have settled into roles that fit their personas as snugly as Italian suits."

-- Critic's Corner, the newcomers: "When (Li) lets loose, the movie becomes, however so briefly, fascinating, even awesome," Hunter wrote. "It's the power, instantly recognizable, of the authentic over the artificial." "Li has a powerful screen presence as the villain, but he isn't given a lot to do," Thompson wrote. "Even his fight scenes are undermined by jarring editing." "(Rock) is straightjacketed by his underwritten role," according to Turan. "Chris Rock (provideds) some very funny stand-up riffs that have nothing whatever to do with the story but at least let his elders catch their breath between sprints," Schwarzbaum wrote. "Did we really need both Chris Rock and Joe Pesci?" Hunter asked.

-- Fanservice Junction: I'm just saying, Glover didn't look too bad in those black briefs. Murtaugh quickly covers up when Butters walks by.

-- Hey, It's the '90s!: Riggs pulling the fire alarm at Uncle Benny's restaurant leads to an El Niño joke. Shortly after, Butters lays down the law with a supposed perp.

-- "You have the right to remain silent, so shut the fuck up, okay? You have the right to an attorney. If you can't afford an attorney, we'll provide you with the dumbest fucking lawyer on earth. If you get Johnnie Cochran, I'll kill ya!"

-- Next: Small Soldiers. On deck: The Mask of Zorro.