Sunday, September 2, 2012

Streaking! OMG!

I had to call this post streaking because if I told you what it was really about you wouldn't have read even this far, but I promise that if you read til the end, you will get a surprise.  Okay, I know you guys don't like my reviews of old eighties buddy movies, but too bad.  I can't just stop at two Lethal Weapon movies. I have all four movies (on VHS) so we are in this for four reviews.  Live with it.  

First of all, let me say that I'm really getting sick of watching Lethal Weapon movies.  Mel Gibson is a dick and so is his character, Martin Riggs.  I love Danny Glover but how in the world could he stand working with Mel Gibson?  And also why does his character, Roger Murtaugh, love Martin Riggs so much?  He's an inconsiderate maniac freeloader.

Okay, let's get this over with.  The plot this time is that Murtaugh has eight days until retirement.  Every day he gets closer to retiring, Riggs puts Murtaugh's life in danger in some ridiculous way.  He almost gets them both blown up in a building because he didn't want to wait for the bomb squad (who we know from the last movie can't actually prevent explosions, they can just delay them for one second.) He got them into a car chase with two armored trucks.  One day when Murtaugh was making lunch for Riggs from the lunch truck he apparently works at during lunchtimes, Riggs started a shootout with some gangbangers and Murtaugh had to save him by shooting a teenage boy.  Thanks a lot, Riggs, you dick!

Anyway, a dirty former cop named Travis is using his knowledge of police procedures to steal weapons collected as evidence.  There are a lot of guns collected by the police department.  Like, warehouses FULL.  So the story is that they are trying to find this guy and stop him.  Renee Russo is an internal affairs officer on the case.  She stores her gun in her pants.  The police in L.A. in the eighties had to use their own cars and they couldn't even afford holsters so they had to stick loaded weapons in the back of their Guess jeans.  Nice.

Murtaugh's real estate agent, Joe Pesci, tells them that they will be able to find Travis at a hockey game because he has season tickets so they go to the game but they don't know what seat Travis is in (good police work!) so Riggs gets on the speaker system and tells Travis that they are there and that they are after him, I think hoping to flush him out but guess what, it doesn't work.  Riggs gets Joe Pesci shot.  Nice going!

In the middle of the movie, Murtaugh is feeling bad for killing the teenage gangbanger so he gets drunk on his boat.  Riggs is worried so he goes to check on him.  He throws Murtaugh's booze overboard, punches him in the stomach, and then yells at him.  He is a TERRIBLE friend.  They hug it out and Murtaugh ends up apologizing to Riggs!  Hey Murtaugh, get out of this relationship, it is abusive.  You are too old for that shit.  If Murtaugh was a woman this would be a Lifetime movie.

At the end Travis kidnaps the captain of the department and goes right into the belly of the beast, which I guess is the main evidence locker for all the guns that are confiscated.  Riggs, Murtaugh and Russo figure out what is going down and they take a young whippersnapper who is turning 22 TODAY(!).  He is wearing a red star trek shirt.  Just kidding, he's not really wearing a star trek shirt but you know what I mean.  No reason for him to be introduced at this point in the story other than to make us feel bad when he gets killed, which he does. (Happy Birthday!)

More happens. Specifically a needless inferno caused by Riggs to finally capture the bad guy which he barely does.  Finally it's retirement day for Murtaugh.  He celebrates by shooting Riggs in the face.  Just kidding.  I wish.  But really, he has changed his mind about retiring because he can't bear to leave Riggs because Riggs really needs him so he is going to give it ten more years.  Roger, you're an idiot.  Riggs is going to kill you.

Okay, time for your surprise.  If you can answer the following questions about this post, I will send you my VHS copy of Lethal Weapon III:
1.  What three things can't the L.A. police department afford?
2.  What kind of pants does Renee Russo like?
3.  Who is the worst friend in the world?

One more to go!

3 comments:

  1. I remember the movies but not the details; and I only have a blue ray dvd player. They were fun movies, though!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Replies
    1. I'm done with them now, Jane. Do you want them? I'll send them to you!

      Delete

I would love your comments.