Cast: Mel Gibson, Danny Glover, Joe Pesci, Rene Russo, Chris Rock
Director: Richard Donner
Previews Shown: Rush Hour, BASEketball, The Negotiator
The key to the Lethal Weapon series is very simple. Fun. Action scenes, held together with a loose plot, and sprinkled with dashes of emotion, including humor, anger and love. Mix it all up, and you have 3 successful movies, so far. So, Richard Donner figured, if it isn't broke, don't fix it, so the fourth installment in the series continues in the shadow of the others.
This movie is not the best in the series (original, because it's the original, and #2 because it actually had a decent story)..it is the best action movie I've seen this year (not saying much considering it was between Godzilla, Deep Impact, and Armageddon...)
The plot involves smuggling Chinese immigrants, and one bad dude, as the villain, but it's the action sequences, which make this movie what it is. I won't go into details, but they are entertaining, and something to see. The performances are the usual, Mel is crazy, but older..Danny's paranoid, and older..Rene Russo is window dressing, Rock and Pesci are thrown in for comic relief, with Rock scoring more than Pesci in that department.
Overall, this movie isn't great, it's one that I'd wait to rent, but it is an enjoyable rent, it remembers the basic premise of these kind of movies is to have fun. You can sit back, turn your brain off, laugh, and enjoy the action without being insulted, or deafened, or just plain bored.
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