It’s nearly 30 years old, but Lethal Weapon (1987) continues to define the buddy cop movie genre.
Sure there’d been plenty of films featuring mismatched cops, but none as much at odds as Murtagh (the gentle family-man who just wants to retire) and Riggs (the reckless maverick driven by suicidal depression).
An immediate critical and commercial hit, the film spawned 3 sequels. While the first film is generally considered a classic, the merits of its follow-ups are somewhat more debatable.
As was proved on the recent Lambcast podcast which made the series the focus of a franchise look-back. The show saw some lively discussion with different contributors making the case as to why Lethal Weapon 2 and (incredibly) Lethal Weapon 4 may actually be the series best offering.
And while no consensus was reached on that, they at least agreed that Lethal Weapon 3 was a deeply terrible film.
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