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Lethal Weapon 4 is a 1998 American buddy cop action film directed and produced by Richard Donner, and starring Mel Gibson, Danny Glover, Joe Pesci, Rene Russo, Chris Rock, and Jet Li (in his international film debut). It is the fourth installment in the Lethal Weapon film series. It is the last film in the series directed by Donner before his death, and the last to be released theatrically.
A sequel titled Lethal Finale is in development for the streaming service HBO Max. Glover and Gibson will reprise their roles as Riggs and Murtaugh, with Gibson also in talks to direct.
Plot[]
Lorna Cole is pregnant with Martin Riggs' baby; they are not married, but both are thinking about it a tough time and have misgivings and fears. Roger Murtaugh's daughter, Rianne Butters, is also pregnant and has secretly married Lee Butters, a young cop who works at the same precinct as Murtaugh and Riggs, though she cannot tell her father because he doesn't want her to date cops.
The opening scene is an unrelated sequence in which Riggs and Murtaugh, two LAPD sergeants, confront a lunatic wearing a flame-retardant armoured suit and wielding an automatic firearm and a flamethrower. The unidentified man is destroying cars and shops along a city street. Aside from some comedic value and a reminder to the audience of Riggs marksmanship skills, the scene mainly serves to show the two partners informing each other of Lorna's and Rianne's pregnancies. There, Murtaugh is in his boxers for distraction of the lunatic, with Riggs shooting the napalm valve causing it to go out of control and go flying straight into a gas truck, thus blowing up to smithereens with the truck and landing on Riggs and Murtaugh's car blowing it up in the process, leaving Riggs and Murtaugh to walk on foot. After this scene, a title card shifts the story to "almost nine months later."
The rest of the movie revolves around Riggs, Murtaugh, and Butters' investigation of a Chinese immigrant smuggling ring, which begins after a vessel is captured with a cargo hold of slave labor. That night, Murtaugh, Riggs, and Leo Getz - the latter now a private detective - find a small dinghy alongside with an entire Chinese family, whom he "rescues" and provides shelter for at his house, claiming to be "freeing slaves." Meanwhile, Riggs and Murtaugh are being informed by Captain Murphy that the damage they've caused, the department lost it's insurance and aren't able to get a new one, and since firing them isn't really an option for them, they're being promoted to Captain.
Information about a crime boss known as Uncle Benny Chan then leads them to Chinatown, where they are introduced to their new arch-nemesis, a high-ranking Triad negotiator named Wah Sing Ku. Wah Sing Ku is organizing the release from prison of four Triad overlords, called the Four Fathers. They are being held by a corrupt Chinese general who demands a huge payoff in exchange for their freedom, but Uncle Benny and Wah Sing Ku have plans to give him counterfeit money instead. The captive artist working on the printing plates for the scam is the elder uncle to Hong, the father of the Chinese family Murtaugh has rescued.
Riggs and Murtaugh decide to hire Leo to follow Uncle Benny around, but the Triads feels they are getting too close and decides to strike back. After Hong contacts his uncle, Riggs and Murtaugh come home to find Wah Sing Ku there with the other Triad gang members holding Murtaugh's family hostage; Hong and his family were already kidnapped. After a brief skirmish (where Wah Sing Ku dismantles Riggs' gun with a flick of his wrist in one deft move), the entire family is tied up and left to die in the house as it is set on fire with everyone inside, including both pregnant women. Ping, the youngest of the Hong children, comes out from hiding safely and cuts them loose setting them free just in time to break out through the living room window.
Riggs takes a radio from Lorna's car, and the pair set off with Rianne's car in hot pursuit of two of the Triad men. Reaching them on the freeway, Riggs lets Murtaugh take over driving and climbs out of the car and leaps over to a mobile home. He pulls one of the thugs through the car window into it, demanding to know where the Hongs are. After engaging in a fight they crash onto the road; Riggs, sitting on a table, holds onto the trailer by the plastic covering they fell through, and the Triad man is run over by a bus. His partner accelerates and attempts to kill Riggs, who is forced to throw one of the table legs at the assailant. Murtaugh rams into the Triads car' and, hearing sirens, the thug makes an escape. Riggs climbs back beside Murtaugh, and they chase the thug, trying to find answers. However, they accidentally fly off a ramp into a building, driving through one of the floors and out back onto the road. Then the last Triad man they know of is killed by a truck.
Leo alerts them that he had tracked down Uncle Benny at his dentist's office, and while using Leo as a distraction to keep the dentist busy, Riggs, Murtaugh, and Butters use laughing gas to extract the truth from him on where the Hongs are at. Here, Murtaugh inadvertently learns that Butters is married to his daughter and that he is the father of her baby, but puts it aside until later. Uncle Benny mentions the Four Fathers, which the detectives mishear as "forefathers"; another detective, Detective Ng, who knows about Chinese society and cultures, corrects them on this point and helps them piece the entire operation together. Benny is later strangled to death by Wah Sing Ku for his indiscretion, and Hong is killed as an example to get his uncle to cooperate. Even when the printing plates are finished, the uncle is killed as well for no information to given to the cops about what went on at the hideout.
Arriving at the meeting between the Triads and the corrupt general and his men, Riggs, Murtaugh, Butters and several other detectives reveal to the general and his men that the money that is being given him for the release of the Four Fathers is counterfeit. As a result, the general personally executes three of the Four Fathers. Wah Sing Ku's henchmen shoots and kills the general, and a gunfight breaks out between the cops, the Triads, and the general's private army in the foreign trade zone down by the docks. During the fight, one of the Four Fathers and older brother to Wah Sing Ku is killed by Murtaugh, and Butters is injured while protecting Murtaugh. The climactic scene takes place on a pier where Riggs and Murtaugh, both unarmed, take on Wah Sing Ku, who is enraged by the death of his brother. Eventually, while Ku nearly kills Riggs by choking him, Murtaugh impales Ku with a piece of metal stick. Murtaugh is knocked out unconscious by Ku, and Riggs and Ku fall into the water as the concrete pier collapses. Ku, after getting brutally beaten as well as impaled, is finally killed by a desperate Riggs with a submerged AK-47 nearby. Riggs swims up to the surface, but becomes trapped underwater again, under a part of the broken pier. Murtaugh comes to his senses regaining his consciousness, and realizes Riggs is in the water and dives in to pull the broken part of the pier on him and rescues him.
The next scene shows Riggs at his deceased wife Victoria Riggs' grave telling her he hasn't visited her in a while (evident from a weed growing over the grave), and confesses to her of his love for Lorna. He asks her for help and support in marrying Lorna as he tells her she would've wanted him to be happy and be married again and make Lorna happy as he made her happy when they were married. He then suddenly draws his gun when he hears a nearby footsteps in the cemetery, which turned out to be Leo Getz practicing his PI techniques. Leo tells Riggs an emotional story of his life and how that he and Murtaugh are the only real friends he's ever had aside from his childhood pet frog, and how they're like family to him. Riggs' pager reveals indicating that it's a message from Lorna that she's about to have the baby and they rush to the hospital. Before leaving the grave, Riggs tells Victoria that he'll always have the ring she gave him, and always have her in his heart and memories.
The movie ends with Lorna and Martin's last-ditch marriage by a minister, Rabbi Gelb, in the maternity ward, and Roger accepting Lee as his son-in-law, as well as his and Rianne's marriage. Two babies are born to Rianne and Lorna, as Martin Riggs is finally settling down. Captain Ed Murphy gives them their former positions as sergeants back since the city is self-insured, and brings gifts for the new-born babies. The Hong family is finally granted asylum. Everyone in the maternity ward is all getting their picture taken by the doctor for the family. The end credits feature the song "Why Can't We Be Friends?" by War along with a collage of screen shots and snapshots taken during production from all four movies, signifying the end of the series.
Cast[]
- Mel Gibson as Martin Riggs
- Danny Glover as Roger Murtaugh
- Jet Li as Wah Sing Ku
- Joe Pesci as Leo Getz
- Chris Rock as Lee Butters
- Traci Wolfe as Rianne Murtaugh
- Rene Russo as Lorna Cole
- Eddy Ko as Hong
- Conan Hutch Lee as Michael Sing Ku
- Steven Lam as Ping Hong
- Kim Chan as Benny Chan
- Ebonie Smith as Carrie Murtaugh
- Zu-Wu Qian as Chung Hong
- George Kee Cheung as Fan
- Calvin Jung as Paul Ng
- Roger Yuan as Chu
- Steve Kahan as Ed Murphy
- Darlene Love as Trish Murtaugh
- Phil Chong as Yee
- Jack Kehler as Mr. Proody
- James Wing Woo as James Wing Chow
- Raymond Ma as Dr. Cheng
- Mary Ellen Trainor as Stephanie Woods
- François Chau as Li Lum Chung
- Raymond Moy as Fan Wong
- Danny Wynands as Man with Flamethrower
Production[]
In July 1993, over a year after the release and big success of Lethal Weapon 3, Warner Bros. and producer Joel Silver started working on not just the fourth film, but the fifth one as well. Screenwriter and script doctor Jonathan Lemkin, who has just done some uncredited work for them on Demolition Man (film) (1993), was hired to write the script for Lethal Weapon 4 while another writer wrote the script for Lethal Weapon 5. According to Silver, originally it was planned to film both films back-to-back, or use best parts from both scripts into one film. In June 1994, Richard Donner was planning on making both fourth and fifth film, however when asked about those in an interview at the time, Mel Gibson said how while they did have two scripts ready, he wasn't interested in doing any more Lethal Weapon sequels.
Between late 1994 and early 1995, screenwriter Jeffrey Boam, who did some uncredited work on first Lethal Weapon (1987), re-wrote original Play Dirty script for Lethal Weapon 2 by Shane Black and Warren Murphy, and wrote the story and script for Lethal Weapon 3, was brought in to re-write Lethal Weapon 4 script which Warner Bros. were going to use for the film, but Boam had some problems with it, and he also wasn't sure about working on another Lethal Weapon film after bad experience he had with last film, like having to keep re-writing it during filming and even getting fired at one point only to be re-hired later. Then later on he started working on his own new story for Lethal Weapon 4, which would have Riggs and Murtaugh fighting against neo-nazi survivalists who are commiting terrorists attacks on L.A., like using Stinger missiles to try and shoot down the jet carrying Los Angeles Lakers. Boam wrote the first version of the script in January 1995, and he said in an interview how he would probably have to write at least three more drafts. By October 1995, Boam was still working on the script, and at the same time he was also working on fourth Indiana Jones film which was left unproduced.
The book The Gross: The Hits, The Flops: The Summer That Ate Hollywood by Peter Bart, went into lot of details regarding the film's troubled production, from writing to release. While Boam was still working on his version of the story for Lethal Weapon 4 about neo-nazi survialists, other writers were writing their own versions, all of which were rejected. Finally, Warner Bros. decided that they wanted for fourth film to focus on storyline involving Triads, so despite them and many other people really liking Boam's version and how he went back to the serious, darker and edgier tone of first film, it was rejected for those reasons. Boam would later say how he felt that the main plot Warner Bros. went with in final film about counterfeiting of Chinese money wasn't good or suspenseful enough plot for Lethal Weapon sequel.
Jonathan Lemkin was once again brought in to write the first version of the script involving Triads, about four years after he wrote his first rejected version of Lethal Weapon 4 script in 1993, and although his new script was received very positively, once again other writers were brought in to write other versions of the story. Alfred Gough and Miles Millar wrote one of the unused scripts, but for some reason they still have story credit in the film.
Joel Silver brought in TV writer Channing Gibson to work on the script, after he was impressed by Gibson's re-write of 1993 spec script by another screenwriter Steven Maeda titled Sandblast, an action adventure thriller described as "Die Hard (1988) meets Cliffhanger (film) (1993) in a sandstorm", about ex-specialist who's also explosives expert leading the commando team into Iraq desert wasteland to search and recover lost nuclear warheads before traitorous team of green berets finds them first, and while dealing with deadly terrain and huge sandstorm. Sandblast was another Warner Bros. project on which Silver worked as producer between 1995 and 1996 when it was in production, and originally Eddie Murphy was going to star in completely serious action role, but after he left, Wesley Snipes was cast in the lead and for $10 million paycheck, and Jean-Claude Van Damme was going to play the main villain, however despite it having about $42 million budget and going into pre-production with cast and crew ready to start working in Morocco where sets were already built, Sandblast was cancelled in 1996 due to several different problems, and due to his "pay or play" deal, Snipes instead starred in Murder at 1600 (1997).
Gibson took the job of writing Lethal Weapon 4 mostly because he thought it would be more relaxed writing job than anything he did for TV, however much like what happened on previous two sequels, the script kept getting changed and re-written over and over again, and Gibson ended up doing more work and revisions on it than on all of his TV work put together. Production even started without half of the script finished, and ending wasn't written until it was finally time to film it.
Leo Getz and Lee Butters weren't in original scripts, but then Joe Pesci was hired and paid $1 million for three weeks of work, and Gibson was "three-fourths" through his newest draft when Chris Rock was hired, which forced him to re-write the script yet again. Butters was originally written to be a gay detective, but immediately when they started filming police station scene between him, Riggs, Murtaugh and Leo, everyone felt how his character didn't work so he was changed and re-written to be Rianne's husband, although they only share one scene in the final film and never say anything to each other, due to last minute changes made on his character.
Besides Lemkin, Gibson, Gough and Millar, some other writers did uncredited work on the script, including Michael Curtis, Greg Malins, Fred Dekker (who came up with the scene where Riggs and Murtaugh drive their car off the freeway and through the building), and even Boam was brought in to work on the script.
Movie went into production in very early January 1998 and with already planned summmer release of that same year, but due to issues during filming including the script changes, production ended around mid May, less than two months before its scheduled July release. Editors had to work very quickly to have the film ready, which is why the trailers for it show some deleted and alternate scenes which are not in the film. But despite this, the film was finished and released as planned.
Release[]
box office[]
Lethal Weapon 4 debuted at No. 1 at the box office with $34.05 million. Although the film grossed $130 million in the U.S., it was not considered a runaway financial success as the previous three films had been. Shooting began in January 1998, just months before the film's release, with a production budget estimated at $120–$150 million (although Warner Bros. maintained it cost less than $100 million) and an additional $50 million spent on marketing and distribution. This made the fourth film the most expensive entry of the series. Its profit margin was saved in part due to the combined foreign box office sales making the film gross approximately $285 million in total, making the second highest-grossing film in the Lethal Weapon film series behind, Lethal Weapon 3 (1992). Still, like its predecessors, Lethal Weapon 4 was among the top ten grossing films of its release year.
Reception[]
Critical reaction to Lethal Weapon 4 was mixed. The film currently holds a rating of 53% on Rotten Tomatoes based on reviews from 69 critics, and an average rating of 6.4 out of 10. The site's consensus states: "Jet Li's arrival breathes fresh life into a tired franchise formula -- but not enough to put Lethal Weapon 4 on equal footing with its predecessors." Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating of 0-100 from mainstream critics, calculated a score of 37 out of 100 based on reviews from 21 critics, which means it has an indication of "generally unfavorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A-" on an A+ to F scale.
James Berardinelli gave the film three stars out of four, writing: "Given the expectations that constrain it, Lethal Weapon 4 is probably the best motion picture that could possibly result from another teaming of Martin Riggs and Roger Murtaugh. The series has lost a lot of steam since the first two entries, and, although the fourth movie ratchets up the energy level from the moribund state of the disappointing Lethal Weapon 3, there's no sense of spontaneity." Roger Ebert gave Lethal Weapon 4 two stars out of four, writing: "Lethal Weapon 4 has all the technical skill of the first three movies in the series, but lacks the secret weapon, which was conviction. All four movies take two cop buddies and put them into spectacular and absurd action sequences, but the first three at least went through the motions of taking the plot seriously (and the first one did such a good job, it made my 'best 10' list of that year). This time, we're watching an exercise." Michael O'Sullivan of The Washington Post called it a "stupid and violent delicacy" that balances a "patented blend of high action and low comedy".
The film was nominated for a Razzie Award for Worst Supporting Actor for Pesci.
Home media[]
Lethal Weapon 4 has been released on VHS and DVD numerous times. It has been re-released in numerous sets that contain all four films in the series. Lethal Weapon 4 was released on Blu-ray Disc as part of a box set with the additional Lethal Weapon films on May 22, 2012.
soundtrack[]
The film's music was composed by Michael Kamen, Eric Clapton, and David Sanborn. This was the only film in the series not to have a soundtrack album released alongside it, but in 2013 La-La Land Records released the score as discs seven and eight of its limited edition Lethal Weapon Soundtrack Collection.
sequel[]
There had long been talk of a fifth Lethal Weapon film, although both Mel Gibson and Danny Glover had initially expressed a lack of interest. In 2007, Moviehole.net received word from sources that Warner Bros. were in the early stages of trying to relaunch the Lethal Weapon series sometime in 2009 or later. A spec script treatment was written by Shane Black and Chuck Mondry, leading to rumors that the sequel was on fast track by Warner Bros. with Black in the director's chair. In 2008, Richard Donner said, "Mel turned it down. I would like to think that Mel turned it down because I wasn't involved." Donner said that he and Lethal Weapon 4 writer Channing Gibson "had an incredibly strong story for the fifth movie" but that the studio had opted to work with Joel Silver instead.
In November 2017, Mel Gibson hinted that a fifth movie might happen and that he, Richard Donner, and Danny Glover have discussed the idea to return. In December 2017, Donner confirmed in an interview on the Spocklight podcast that Gibson and Glover have agreed to return as Riggs and Murtaugh respectively and that he has a story all set. The only obstacle is Warner Bros. greenlighting the film. Channing Gibson remains involved as screenwriter. The story will take place in present-day and is intended to be the final film in the series. In February 2018, Donner revealed the film's official title to be Lethal Finale; while also stating that the film is being held up by the production company and story. In January 2020, producer Dan Lin confirmed that Lethal Weapon 5 is in active development, with Mel Gibson and Danny Glover confirmed to return, and Richard Donner returning to direct, but that a script had not yet been finalized. In December 2020, Richard Donner confirmed that he was developing the sequel and would produce and direct it, adding that it would be the last film he directs. However, Donner died on July 5, 2021, leaving the fate of the film unknown. Mel Gibson has been approached for potentially directing the film.
On November 15, 2021, Gibson confirmed that he is in talks to direct and star in the fifth Lethal Weapon film, saying that he would be helming the film to honor Donner. It was also revealed that Richard Wenk (The Equalizer, Jack Reacher: Never Go Back) had drafted a screenplay. The production will be exclusive to HBO Max with no theatrical release.
Trivia[]
- Silver Pictures' 14th theatrically feature film.
- This is the final film in the Lethal Weapon franchise.
- This is Jet Li's first acting debut.
- This is the first time Riggs isn't seen smoking, following the third film, it is presumed that he stopped smoking from then on.
- This is Joe Pesci's final film role before his retirement from acting in 1999.
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