YMMV / Lethal Weapon (1987)

• Angst? What Angst?: Rianne's boyfriend is killed right in front of her before she's kidnapped by special forces mercenaries. Later at a hostage swap, she's in the middle of a gunfight where men are killed all around her before she takes off in a car (with a dead body in the passenger seat), possibly leaving her father to die before they reacquire her. She then watches them torture her dad. When that doesn't work, she's threatened with rape before Riggs saves them in another violent firefight. This should probably lead to years of therapy and PTSD. By the end of the movie, she tells Riggs that she's going to be fine and shows no signs of being affected by severe trauma.
• Complete Monster: General Peter McAllister and his vicious right hand, Mr. Jack Joshua, are the leaders of a corrupt military drug trafficking organization called Shadow Company that ships heroin from VC Government bases they raided and massacred in The Vietnam War. When one of their allies, Michael Hunsaker, tries to back out and expose the operation, the General sends Joshua to assassinate several people, including Hunsaker, his daughter, a prostitute, and Martin Riggs, to prevent the police from stopping the operations, all of which Joshua approaches with personal sadism. The General then sends Joshua to kidnap Roger Murtaugh's daughter, Rianne, resulting in Joshua murdering Mark, the boy Rianne was dating, while they sexually abuse Rianne in their custody. The two then kidnap Riggs and Murtaugh and torture them relentlessly for what Hunsaker told them, during which the General threatens to rape Rianne in front of Murtaugh. When the abductees escape, the General and Joshua endanger civilians numerous times, completely disregarding the casualties of innocents. Even after the General dies, Joshua escapes to Murtaugh's house and attempts to break in and slaughter Murtaugh's whole family before trying to beat down and kill Riggs, killing two police officers throughout.
• Ending Fatigue: A minor case of this with the fight against Mr. Joshua. It's a cool sequence, but the plot's already been wrapped up.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Riggs jokingly asks if the stock market crashed. Months after the film came out, Black Thursday happened.
  • One of the kids near Dixie's house says "My momma says policemen shoot black people!". Considered mildly uncomfortable in the 1980s, when police were still considered 'heroic', urban and suburban crime were high, and inner-city gangs (mostly minority gangs) were on the rise.
    • The boy's statement is far harsher in the 2010s and 2020s, with increased public knowledge (and verified footage) of unarmed black Americans being fatally shot by police. The rise in public awareness accompanies a growing realization that this kind of police-to-public interaction isn't new, but has continued for many decades.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • A character remarks that "guys in the 80's aren't tough". Nowadays, the 80's are known for Rated M for Manly action films with stars such as Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone.
  • Too bad Joe Pesci wasn't in the film, since the Big Bad's name just happens to be Peter McAllister...
  • Michael Hunsaker mentions that the Shadow Company worked with the Air America project in The Vietnam War. In 1990, Mel Gibson starred in a movie based on the said project.
  • Mitchell Ryan would later go on to play another rogue army general who deals in drugs.
  • Gibson stars in an action movie set at Christmas. In Fatman, he plays Santa Claus himself.
  • In the first film, Murtaugh's fridge has a sticker condemning apartheid in South Africa. Guess who the villains of the second film are?
• Memetic Mutation: Though not nearly on the same scale as Die Hard, There are plenty of fans who proclaim Lethal Weapon as a Christmas movie since it's set during the holiday season, and ends with Riggs joining the Murtaughs for Christmas at their house. In fact, it may be a reaction to this meme relating to Die Hard.
• Moral Event Horizon: Joshua crosses it when he kidnaps Rianne and murders her boyfriend in the process.
• Retroactive Recognition: Joan Severance (uncredited) as one of the girls packaging drugs in the dealer's Beverly Hills gazebo.
• Special Effects Failure: When Riggs and the jumper leap off the ledge, the chain on the stunt cuffs visibly snaps and the two stunt men try to hide it by holding hands.
• Values Dissonance:
  • Riggs displays casual homophobia (calling Amanda sleeping with Dixie disgusting, and questioning whether Murtaugh's a "fag" when he tries to put out Riggs' burning jacket). Perhaps fair for its time in 1987; stands out quite a bit in modern times.
  • The amount of dismissal Riggs' superior displays towards the department psych evaluator, as well as how bad Riggs' current mental state is.
  • The way Murtaugh slut shames Dixie, "All dressed up and no one to blow," strikes a different chord rewatching in the post woke movement. Even though prostitution is still not legal in Los Angeles as of 2023, many societal views on sex work have changed substantially, especially in liberal California.

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