LETHAL WEAPON - DVD review

Mel Gibson's "Lethal Weapon" in 1987 along with Bruce Willis's "Die Hard" a year later practically reinvented the action thriller with their combination of hard-edged violence, absurd plots, and sometimes macabre humor. "Lethal Weapon" moves along at a frenetic pace, providing excitement galore, so long as you don't stop to think about it.

This DVD edition Director's Cut restores about seven minutes or so of previously unseen material to make the merriment even better. I wish I could report that the picture and sound were equal to the task or that Warner Brothers had provided more bonus items on the disc, but for fans of the series these drawbacks will be of minor interest.

Gibson stars as Martin Riggs, a policeman who has become unhinged since the death of his wife in an automobile accident. In case you haven't seen the film, he is the "lethal weapon" of the title. His fellow cops think he's a psycho because he's suicidal, willing to sacrifice his life to get a job done. In this first movie he's more of a wild man than he is in the sequels, more earnestly nuts.

The first time we see him he's facing down a sniper, walking directly at him and firing away. The buddy angle is that he gets unwillingly teamed up with his opposite on the force, a conservative family man named Roger Murtaugh, played by Danny Glover. They take an instant dislike for one another, which in time, of course, turns into mutual admiration and lifelong friendship. They become the "Odd Couple" of law enforcement.

The plot may safely be ignored. Gary Busey is a cold-blooded henchman called Mr. Joshua, an ex-Special Forces agent now working as a mercenary for a drug syndicate manned by former CIA operatives. Riggs and Murtaugh stumble into the machinations, bullets fly, stuff blows up, people get tortured, and all ends well in hand-to-hand combat between Riggs and Joshua. The director, Richard Donner ("Superman," "The Omen," "Goonies"), keeps things moving at a pace that seldom allows one to breathe, nor a moment to reflect on how silly it all is.

Video:
Warner Brothers present the film in a 1.75:1 widescreen aspect ratio, close to its original theatrical-release size. The picture quality is slightly blurred, however, looking only a little better than a good prerecorded video tape or a good television broadcast. Colors are not too stable, either, sometimes fading in and out of focus and hue.

Audio:
The sound is provided by Dolby Digital 5.1 or, if one has the capacity for its playback, DTS 5.1. Again, the folks at Warner play down the DTS business by listing it only in the tiniest letters in the bottom-right corner of the box. Go figure: They put all their effort into providing the disc with DTS and then hardly mention it. In any event, I played the disc in Dolby Digital where it acquitted itself respectably for a film that was obviously remixed for five-point-one channel home playback from what I understand to be its original six-track recording. Lots of information gets sent to the rear speakers, but it's without much directionality. Front-channel stereo is excellent and dynamics are wide. Overall clarity, though, is a bit congested in loudest climaxes, and bass tends to get somewhat woolly.

Extras:
The seven extra minutes restored to the Director's Cut are clearly indexed by asterisks on the scene selections menu. The additional segments are used mainly to help clarify Riggs's far-fetched behavior, and as far as I could see, they help. I liked this new Director's Cut better than I remembered the film the first time I saw it. As for anything else on the disc, there isn't much. One finds brief production notes on the "Fight to the Finish" at the film's end, a few cast bios, thirty-six chapter stops, a trailer, and the DTS feature. All of the new "Lethal Weapon" editions come in distinctive metallic packaging, and they include English and French as the spoken language choices and English, French, and Spanish as the subtitle options.

Parting Thoughts:
As ridiculous as the "Lethal Weapon" films are, the one endearing quality they all have in common is the relationship between Riggs and Murtaugh. Their friendship and repartee continue to delight and make even the most preposterous action amusing. They're a good team and deserve their re-engagements.