Director Richard Donner
Starring Mel Gibson, Danny Glover, Gary Busey
Rated M
Score 6/6

Two newly paired cops who are complete opposites must put aside their differences in order to catch a gang of drug smugglers.

I’ll leave it up to you good people to decide if Lethal Weapon is a Christmas Movie or not. It should be noted that more Christmas songs are on the soundtrack for Lethal Weapon as Die Hard (according to IMDB). Then of course there is Riggs’ Christmas present to Murtaugh and he also spends Christmas with the Murtaughs at the end of the movie. I recently read somewhere that Lethal Weapon should be described as an ‘Alt-Christmas’ movie a description that could be used to describe Die Hard. The difference between a Christmas movie and an Alt-Christmas movie. Especially when compared to movies like Lethal Weapon and Die Hard would be that a Christmas movie would be little a more peace, love and goodwill to all men and have significantly less gun play.

Even though it’s been awhile since I have last watched Lethal Weapon, I was fairly certain that I have already reviewed it. With it being December, it seemed like a good time to sit down and watch it.
The mismatched buddy cop movie is something that has been done and will continue to be done for as long as there are movies. Thirty years after its release no matter how cliched the basic plot of Lethal Weapon might seem the movie still holds up because it’s a movie that achieves its greatness through the alignment of the planets that made it. The soundtrack is amazing particularly Riggs’ theme (Meet Martin Riggs) which was performed by Eric Clapton which is hauntingly beautiful. Then there is the individual performances of Mel Gibson and Danny Glover and how well they played off each other. An action movie is nothing without its villain. Mr. Joshua as portrayed by Gary Busey might not be the evillest villains, but he certainly is one of the creepier.