Lethal Weapon (1987)
In some ways this is a great movie. It's fast, it's filmed with dramatic fluidity and terrific light, it has more lively acting than most movies, and it's filled with heroes and bad guys you can relate to.
Director Richard Donner broke out of years of successful television directing with the headline hit, "The Omen," in 1976, followed the next year with "Superman." But oddly enough (or not, following his t.v. years which included not only several "Twilight Zone" episodes but also "Gilligan"s Island" and "Perry Mason"), it was the unlikely buddy movie with Mad Max star Mel Gibson that has made him very rich, and almost famous.
Gibson makes it easy to forget all the nastiness that has happened lately in his life (from his own doing) because he's such a natural screen presence. I had almost forgotten how alive and a little edgy he could be in his goofy, handsome way. And Danny Glover, equally, comes alive on the screen, a little goofy as well, of course, but comfortable as the dad in a functioning middle class family. The two men are cops, thrown together and by some stroke of bad luck, pitched into high stakes dramas one after another.
And if you really bother paying attention, the plot is a strain, made more for effect than anything that matters or even quite makes sense. There are ex-CIA heroin dealers and absurd (and dangerous) helicopter chases, fantastic skills with guns and an even more fantasy-like muddy hand-to-hand fist fight under the spray of a broken fire hydrant at night. Yeah, it's crazy and over the top and you just have to dive in and say, cool, go for it, great filming, funny one-liners.
It's a moment for moment movie with a handful of clunker moments but hundreds of crazy fast and exciting ones. For all they are worth. In some ways, at least, as entertainment straight up, a kind a television on steroids, this is a great movie.
In some ways this is a great movie. It's fast, it's filmed with dramatic fluidity and terrific light, it has more lively acting than most movies, and it's filled with heroes and bad guys you can relate to.
Director Richard Donner broke out of years of successful television directing with the headline hit, "The Omen," in 1976, followed the next year with "Superman." But oddly enough (or not, following his t.v. years which included not only several "Twilight Zone" episodes but also "Gilligan"s Island" and "Perry Mason"), it was the unlikely buddy movie with Mad Max star Mel Gibson that has made him very rich, and almost famous.
Gibson makes it easy to forget all the nastiness that has happened lately in his life (from his own doing) because he's such a natural screen presence. I had almost forgotten how alive and a little edgy he could be in his goofy, handsome way. And Danny Glover, equally, comes alive on the screen, a little goofy as well, of course, but comfortable as the dad in a functioning middle class family. The two men are cops, thrown together and by some stroke of bad luck, pitched into high stakes dramas one after another.
And if you really bother paying attention, the plot is a strain, made more for effect than anything that matters or even quite makes sense. There are ex-CIA heroin dealers and absurd (and dangerous) helicopter chases, fantastic skills with guns and an even more fantasy-like muddy hand-to-hand fist fight under the spray of a broken fire hydrant at night. Yeah, it's crazy and over the top and you just have to dive in and say, cool, go for it, great filming, funny one-liners.
It's a moment for moment movie with a handful of clunker moments but hundreds of crazy fast and exciting ones. For all they are worth. In some ways, at least, as entertainment straight up, a kind a television on steroids, this is a great movie.