Republished from the show notes of my other site, Fuds on Film.
I don’t recall 1998 calling out for another Lethal Weapon outing after a six year gap, but here it is, and we all have to deal with it. Thankfully, it’s much easier to deal with than the third outing.
In what’s close to being a bit of character development, Gibson’s Riggs is starting to come around to the long-held position of Glover’s Murtaugh, that they are getting too old for these activities, particularly with Rene Russo’s Lorna Cole on the back stretch of a pregnancy.
But, they duo cannot help but stumble into trouble, here more or less accidentally uncovering a people-smuggling operation that puts them in the crosshairs of Jet Li’s Wah Sing Ku and the assorted goons of the Triad outfit in LA, with the usual increasing stakes as the film progresses, including yet more damage to cinema’s most frequently destroyed family home.
Riggs and Murtaugh are aided in their endeavours by Joe Pesci’s Leo Getz again, and also Chris Rock’s Detective Lee Butters, who I have no particular beef with, but he does sort of become totemic of the series’ increasingly wrought struggle between the dramatic and comedic elements always ending up a little too far on the comedic side. The original got away with it because Black’s comedy is witty, but efforts since then have been a touch too broad for my tastes, particularly mixed with the violence.
Speaking of violence, Jet Li’s pretty good, isn’t he? Well, we all knew that, and continue to know this, despite Hollywood having repeated failed to do anything useful with him apart from this, where his brand of dispassionate ass-kicking makes for a ruthlessly effective bad dude.
While LW4 does start to feel like an unhealthily diluted formula from LW1, and it’s dragged out a touch too long, it’s still fun to revisit the characters and their antics, even if they’re starting to feel more like they are in a sit com than a crime drama. However, I can’t think of many other fourth entries in a series that are as enjoyable as this one, so that’s got to count for something. Certainly not the worst member of its box set.