Lethal Weapon 4 (1998, Dir. Richard Donner, USA) (Cert: 15) ***

Starring: Mel Gibson, Danny Glover, Jet Li

 

On a night out fishing, police officers Martin Riggs (Gibson), Roger Murtaugh (Glover) and their supposed friend, Leo Getz (Joe Pesci) nearly get sunk in a collision with a Chinese tanker. After a fire fight, the cops inspect the tanker and find a group of Chinese illegal immigrants. Sympathising with them, Murtaugh takes them into his home, which antagonises the Chinese organised crime syndicates forcing Murtaugh and Riggs to go on the case once again.

 

Lethal Weapon 4 does prove that by the late 90’s, Mel Gibson and Danny Glover were indeed getting too old for the series. Gibson seems a little too old for the kind of action he’s performing (not to mention having broken out on his own after directing and starring in Braveheart (1996)) and Danny Glover looks increasingly tired (although he’s still a few years younger than his character who should be around sixty and not doing this kind of work!). This is mostly apparent when paired up against main villain, Jet Li. Li fits the villainous mould better than expected, but it’s definitely asking a bit much for Mel Gibson to hold his own in a fight scene against a much younger actor with an actual martial arts reputation. Fortunately, the subject of the characters’ advancing age is woven into the story and the characters still make this enjoyable, even the new additions (Chris Rock, whilst not completely enjoyable, is more palatable than Joe Pesci as the comic relief). The ending is, even by action movie standards, completely devoid of scientific reasoning and it’s good that series  seems to have stopped here, but the film is at least entertaining.

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