It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

Horrible, fascist and poorly acted

Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Don't read this review. It's bias in every which way! Singularly my favourite film ever. Maybe the main reason for me getting to geek status with the wonderful world of movies. Shane Black (wow) Richard Donner (wow) Mel Gibson (wow)! All my Christmas's at once. Many people will disagree with me but I love it! The ultimate in buddie movies which spawned 3 more fantastic films. The original crazed Mad max becomes the even crazier Martin Riggs. Gibson portrays the agony and heartache of a cop on the edge of losing wife. His face could tell a thousand stories of his pain. Richard Donner knows that Mel Gibson has this edge and frames it perfectly. He lets the actors generate an energy and rolls with it. This is seen even more on LW2. 80's action with amazing energy that doesn't stop. Danny (Murtagh) Glover could be the voice of reason but for Riggs but realised he is too much of a lose cannon to control. Perfect cop buddie, good cop, worst cop! "I'll never be to old for this shxx!"

All the clichés meet here: this film is undeniably an 80's action flick. It's got the cop one-two punch, that light crime atmosphere and intrigue revolving around a death (suicide...or not ?), cheap campy laughs and lengthy action scenes, soundtrack full of saxophone or bluesy reverb guitars, the "I'm too old for this s*it !" line and a very (too) obvious divide between the good guys fighting the good fight versus the definite bad guys.They really could've used lots more of the comedic potential between a completely insane (like, more than usual) and unleashed Mel Gibson and his black older counterpart Danny Glover whose characters are both likable in their own different ways, naturally. There are at least two full action scenes that seem endless and feel pointless after a certain point where if you're not a fanatic of explosions and electric-paced successive bursts of motion you're probably going to feel every second of them pretty quickly. Too much action - not enough laughs. That's for sure. It's too uneven barring that anyways. The film settles itself nicely at the beginning, develops decently as we get to know more about the plot and the lead characters (how great a shot Mel Gibson really is, etc) but then those monolithic chunks of action... it's too disparate in how much humor is supplied, how much action was needed, and the plot wears thin way too soon. Finally the film is also quite politicized: the 'black and white partners make nice' rationale, the apartheid sign on the fridge that's well emphasized... it's not just an innocent little comedy-action flick, there's real underlying social commentary here.Not good enough, it doesn't matter how slightly more semi-original it was when it came out in 1987: 5/10.

LETHAL WEAPON is the film that kick-started the popular franchise and helped to usher in a new wave of buddy-buddy comedy cop movies. Watching it today, it does feel a little slow and dated in parts, with often laboured comedy and plotting that takes a long time to get anywhere. The reason the film still works lies in the casting of Mel Gibson and Danny Glover, two underrated actors who share an irresistible camaraderie.You know the score by now: Gibson's the crazy one (and never crazier than here), Glover the straight man, his by-the-book partner. The latter in particular is excellent, boosting the humour quotient of any given situation. The big stunt and explosion scenes are all well and good, although this doesn't really quality as an action flick until the last half hour, which has some good shoot-outs and a memorable torture-by-electrocution set-piece featuring DIE HARD's Al Leong. Gary Busey's larger-than-life baddie is the scene-stealer here, so it's a pity about all that doubling and dated choreography in the final scene.

Plot; A calm, rational veteran detective is paired with an unorthodox and mentally unstable younger partner.Perhaps the definitive film in the buddy cop genre, this first of four Lethal Weapon films is much darker than its predecessors. Where the sequels amped up the comedy and softened the harder edges of Mel Gibson's Martin Riggs character, the original is an occasionally brooding and jarringly violent action/dramedy.Stars Mel Gibson and Danny Glover share an incredible and effortless chemistry, and though it boasts a tight script (by Shane Black) and steady direction (by Richard Donner), it's Gibson and Glover who really make it work.