Lethal Weapon

Thanks to the success of 48 Hrs. (1982), the Buddy Action Movie became arguably the most popular genre in the 1980s and it seemed, for a short time, that studios were handing them out to any dramatic actor-comedian combo that wanted one. This resulted in the best of times (Beverly Hills Cop) and the worst of times (City Heat). By the late ‘80s, the formula had gotten stale and in need of an injection of new blood. Along came aspiring screenwriter Shane Black who had written an urban western inspired by Dirty Harry (1971). With Lethal Weapon (1987), he took the Buddy Action Movie to darker places than it had been before by teaming up a veteran cop in the twilight of his career with his new partner, an unhinged, suicidal loose cannon. Needless to say, the end result was explosive and the movie was a massive commercial success, spawning three increasingly inferior sequels and a television show.

Veteran Los Angeles police detective Roger Murtaugh (Danny Glover) is assigned a case involving a coked-up, pill-popping prostitute that took a swan dive off her high-rise apartment building. He becomes personally involved when the dead girl’s father (Tom Atkins) turns out to be an old Vietnam War buddy who tells him that she was murdered and desperately implores his friend to find those responsible and kill them. If that wasn’t hard enough news to take, he’s also been assigned a new partner – Martin Riggs (Mel Gibson) – who may or may not have a crazy death wish.

They soon run afoul of retired General Peter McAllister (Mitchell Ryan) who is running a heroin-smuggling operation and employs a team of mercenaries including his fiercesome right-hand man Mr. Joshua (Gary Busey), an impeccably dressed individual that pulls a G. Gordon Liddy with an underling’s lighter to show what a badass he is. It’s a nice scene that shows what a serious threat these guys are to our heroes. I like how the film gradually reveals the kind of threat Murtaugh and Riggs are up against and they are people that use deadly force, which tempers the comedy that is sprinkled liberally throughout. Black’s script gets the mix just right – something that subsequent Black-less sequels did not with their increasingly lazy sitcom elements typified by the addition of Joe Pesci’s annoying mugging.

Director Richard Donner immediately shows the contrasting lifestyles of Murtaugh and Riggs with the former a loving family man that lives in the suburbs while the latter starts the day with a cigarette and beer in a trailer with his dog by the beach. Not surprisingly, they also have contrasting approaches to police work and this is memorably illustrated when we see Riggs at work, going undercover to bust a trio of drug dealers at a Christmas tree lot and proceeds to throw them off guard by going all Three Stooges on them in a moment that is hilarious but quickly turns deadly on a dime when one of them pulls a gun. After dispatching a few of them, one of the crooks grabs Riggs and puts a gun to his head. Instead of freaking out or begging for his life, he repeatedly taunts the guy to shoot him, which unnerves the crook so much that Riggs is able to disarm him.

The scene where Murtaugh and Riggs first meet is a memorable one as the former spots the latter taking out his gun, assumes he’s a criminal and charges him only to be taken down very quickly by his new partner. This starts the beginning of a contentious partnership as Riggs tells Murtaugh early on, “Let’s just cut the shit. We both know why I was transferred. Everybody thinks I’m suicidal in which I’m fucked ‘cos nobody wants to work with me. Or, they think I’m faking it, draw a psycho pension in which case I’m fucked and nobody wants to work with me. Basically, I’m fucked.” Not surprisingly, Murtaugh isn’t thrilled to be working with Riggs either and tells him, “God hates me, that’s what it is,” to which his partner replies, “Hate him back. Works for me.”

I like that the film takes the time to establish the volatile relationship between these two men, showing their contrasting styles of police work as evident in a scene where they deal with a guy threatening to jump off a building. Riggs’ solution is certainly a novel if not completely batshit crazy one. This leads to an excellent scene where they have it out and Riggs tells Murtaugh about his suicidal tendencies, which features intense acting from both men. It gives Lethal Weapon an edge as Murtaugh (and us) don’t know what Riggs is going to do next even as the movie goes through the usual Buddy Action Movie beats.

Chemistry is everything with this genre and Gibson and Glover certainly have it and not just in the action scenes but the crucial downtime in-between, like when Murtaugh takes Riggs home to meet his family and afterwards they hash out the case up to that point, which shows them gelling as a team. It is a nice moment between these guys as we get to know them and care about what happens to them. Black’s script tempers this quiet, bonding moment with Riggs’ parting shot before he heads home: “When I was 19, I did a guy in Laos from a thousand yards out. It was a rifle shot in high wind. Maybe eight or even ten guys in the world could’ve made that shot. It’s the only thing I was ever good at.” Gibson delivers this dialogue with just enough matter-of-fact edginess as to give off a chilling vibe.

Riggs is haunted by the death of his wife and in a powerful scene puts a loaded gun in his mouth. The utter sadness and despair Gibson conveys in this scene is powerful and gives his character an added dimension beyond being simply a wild and crazy cop. It also gives us insight into what motivates him. Murtaugh is a police detective celebrating his 50th birthday when we first meet him and is really starting to feel his age thanks to his oldest daughter who has started dating boys, much to his chagrin. Glover does a nice job of juggling his role as beleaguered family man and someone who is becoming increasingly exasperated by the dangerous antics of his new partner.

Lethal Weapon would establish Black’s tried and true motifs that he’s used in most of his movies: a mystery is kickstarted by the death of a prostitute or stripper, which establishes a favorite recurring thematic pre-occupation of innocence lost. In order to solve the murder, an older, burnt-out character partners with a younger, zanier one going up against a villain who is an older, richer white character that employs an impeccably dressed, unfailingly polite sadistic henchman with the story usually taking place during Christmas in Los Angeles.

Ever the consummate professional, Donner’s crisp direction keeps things chugging along with a slick, glossy look that was synonymous with most ‘80s action movies. The action sequences are coherent, we always know where everyone is and they aren’t edited within an inch of their lives. Best of all, he makes sure to spend enough time letting us get to know Murtaugh and Riggs, showing how their partnership develops over time as they learn to trust each other by surviving death-defying situations. The film also isn’t afraid to forego logic and indulge in its Alpha Male reptilian brain at the climax when, despite being surrounded by cops, Riggs decides to have it out with Mr. Joshua for a knock-down, drag-out fight where the cop is finally allowed to let his inner caveman out. And everyone lets these guys do it! It makes no common sense but the film has been building up to this point and we want to see these two guys go at it to see who is the bigger badass.

The commercial success of Lethal Weapon propelled the young Shane Black into the stratosphere and for a short while he became the highest paid screenwriter in Hollywood. Donner, Gibson and Glover did pretty well for themselves, reteaming for three more sequels – the second of which (1989) was the only one that was any good. None of them have been able to touch the lightning in a bottle that Donner, et al were able to catch with the first movie and for a brief moment it seemed like the Buddy Action Movie was going to be given a new lease on life. After all, Midnight Run came out the next year and was also a breath of fresh air but sadly these two movies were the exception and not the rule for some time to come.

Point Break

We all have Kathryn Bigelow to thank for the Keanu Reeves action movie star currently tearing it up in the John Wick franchise. It all started with Point Break (1991). It was generally panned by critics upon its release and it performed modestly at the box office, spawning a minor cult following among action film fans. It is a great film but not in the traditional sense. No, it is a great cheeseball action flick riddled with clichéd dialogue, stereotypical characters and by-the-numbers plotting. It also has some pretty quotable dialogue, kick-ass action sequences involving daring bank heists, car chases, skydiving and, of course, breathtaking surfing footage – one of the film’s most important selling points. What was once viewed as a guilty pleasure, Point Break has aged like a fine wine and should be regarded as one of the best action films of the 1990s.

Here’s the premise: the FBI are baffled by a string of robberies committed in the Los Angeles area by a group calling themselves the Ex-Presidents – thieves who disguise themselves by wearing masks of former United States Presidents: Richard Nixon, Lyndon B. Johnson, Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. Enter the clean-cut Johnny Utah (Reeves), fresh from the academy and assigned to veteran agent and all around burn-out Angelo Pappas (Gary Busey). Pappas has a crazy theory that the Ex-Presidents are surfers when they aren’t bank robbers and he convinces Utah to go undercover as a wave rider-in-training so that he can get close to this tight-knit group. Unfortunately, Utah has zero surfing skills and nearly drowns before cute, tomboy surfer girl Tyler (Lori Petty) rescues him. He manages to convince her to teach him how to surf and she unwittingly acts as his contact to the exclusive surfing clique, which includes Bodhi (Patrick Swayze), a “modern savage” surfer/adrenaline junkie in search of the ultimate ride. Once Utah makes the connection between Bodhi and his crew and the bank robberies, all hell breaks loose.

Point Break trots out and downright revels in stereotypes: Utah is the all-American good guy, Pappas is the burn-out cop and they are constantly being chewed out by their jerk-off boss (John C. McGinley) for their screwball antics. The film wastes little time breaking out the requisite alpha male bonding scenes, like the football game on the beach at night where Utah proves that he’s got the balls to hang with Bodhi and his crew. After the he-man bonding session, Bodhi tells Utah about his dream of surfing the ultimate wave which will hit Bell’s Beach, Australia as the result of a massive storm that forms only once every 50 years. As soon as he says this, you just know that it’s going to play a part later on – it’s that kind of film.

Matthew Broderick, Charlie Sheen and Johnny Depp were all originally considered for the role of Johnny Utah when Ridley Scott was attached to direct. After the project fell through with Scott, the producers took the screenplay to other directors and James Cameron, who was married to Bigelow at the time, expressed an interest in executive producing. Bigelow had just completed Blue Steel (199) and was looking for her next project.

At the time, casting Keanu Reeves in an action film was considered a risky move. Remember, this was before Speed (1994) and The Matrix films. In a film filled with clichéd characters and dialogue, Reeves’ trademark blankness is an asset rather than a liability. The actor actually liked the name of his character (in its own dumb way it is pretty awesome if you think about it) as it reminded him of star athletes like Johnny Unitas and Joe Montana. In an interview he described his character as a “total control freak and the ocean beats him up and challenges him. After a while everything becomes a game…He becomes as amoral as any criminal. He loses the difference between right and wrong.” Pretty deep stuff, right? It is this total commitment to character, however, that makes his performance so fun to watch. Just watch and bask in the over-the-top intensity in which he delivers the classic line, “I AM AN FBI AGENT!” dramatically enunciating every word.

The casting of Lori Petty as Reeves’ love interest is an unusual choice. I’m sure the studio probably wanted some blond bombshell Pamela Anderson/Baywatch-type babe but instead Bigelow cast the tomboyish Petty who brings a lot of spunky charm to the role. With her short haircut and lithe build she has an asexual quality that makes for an interesting match with the equally androgynous Reeves. Petty enjoyed the experience of filming, getting to surf and of course, “It’s me and five hot, wet dudes all the time. ‘Oh, Lori, you’re going to make out with Patrick Swayze.’ ‘Okay.’ ‘Now you’re going to make out with Keanu.’ ‘Okay. On the same day? Awesome!’”

Point Break was originally called the painfully obvious Johnny Utah when Reeves was cast in the title role. Not surprisingly, 20th Century Fox felt that this title said very little about surfing and by the time Patrick Swayze was cast, the film had been renamed Riders on the Storm after the song of the same name by The Doors. Jim Morrison’s lyrics had nothing to do with the film, however, and so that title was also rejected. It was not until halfway through filming that Point Break became the film’s title because of its relevance to surfing.

Surprisingly, it’s Swayze’s Zen master/surfer/bank robber Bodhi that doesn’t fall into an easy stereotype and comes across as the most interesting, charismatic character in the entire film. You have to give the credit to Swayze and his oddly fascinating performance. We find ourselves rooting not for Reeves’ bland FBI agent but Swayze’s thrillseeking surfer. Point Break came along right after Swayze’s phenomenal success with Ghost (1990) and he went completely in the opposite direction with this film. He had already demonstrated a capacity for action film roles with Road House (1989) and looks like he’s having a blast in Point Break. Bodhi could have so easily been played as a silly stereotypical bad guy – the pseudo-philosopher criminal but Swayze is a good enough actor that he sells pretentious surfer credos like, “It’s a state of mind. It’s that place where you lose yourself and find yourself,” with complete conviction. It works because the actor believes in what he’s saying. So, it comes as no surprise that Swayze felt a kinship with his character and that they both shared “that wild-man edge.”

What can you say about Gary Busey that hasn’t already been said? He brings a hilariously unpredictable quality to every scene he’s in as you wonder if the filmmakers just let him improvise most of his character’s dialogue. Busey’s introduction in the film is priceless. Utah meets Pappas for the first time at an exercise where the veteran agent has to retrieve two bricks from the bottom of a pool blindfolded (?!). We are never told what this is meant to prove or do but it does speak volumes about Pappas’ gonzo attitude towards life. Unaware that he’s talking to his new partner, Pappas gripes that he’s being paired up with some “quarterback punk.” Reeves’ response is right on the money as he introduces himself as “Punk, quarterback punk.” While Busey does provide a lot of the film’s humor, he can play drama as well as the dramatic showdown at the airport late in the film demonstrates. He and Reeves have a good mentor/protégé relationship that develops over the course of the film. They play well off each other with the looseness of Busey’s performance contrasting Reeves’ stiffness. This is evident in the scene where Pappas asks Utah to order him two meatball sandwiches. Busey takes what could have been an average scene into something memorable with his offbeat delivery.

As for the supporting cast, there’s the terminally pissed off boss played by character actor extraordinaire John C. McGinley who rattles of a scene-stealing rant full of rapid-fire insults years before he’d be doing it on a regular basis on the television show Scrubs. Look closely and you’ll spot independent film veteran James LeGros in a small role as one Bodhi’s crew. Look even closer and you’ll spot Red Hot Chili Peppers lead singer Anthony Kiedis as a part of a gang of small-time criminals/surfers who “only live to get radical” as Bodhi puts it. His one line of dialogue (the classic, “That would be a waste of time.” – believe me, it’s all in how it’s delivered) is delivered so badly that he makes Reeves look like Paul Newman in comparison. Tom Sizemore has a memorable cameo as a pissed off undercover DEA agent trying to bust a group of drug dealing surf Nazis. He would work with Bigelow again on Strange Days.

The surfing sequences are beautifully shot with the camera right there in the water with the surfers riding the waves as Bigelow does an excellent job of conveying the exhilarating rush of what it is like to be out there catching a wave, riding it in and the euphoric feeling that one gets from the experience. For the most part, it is pretty obvious where stunt doubles were used and where the actors were inserted for close-ups – the waves don’t match up. But hey, at least their faces aren’t digitally pasted onto a surfing double like in Blue Crush (2002).

Petty, Reeves and Swayze trained with former world class professional surfer Dennis Jarvis on the Hawaiian island of Kauai two months before filming. Jarvis remembers, “Patrick said he'd been on a board a couple of times, Keanu definitely hadn't surfed before, and Lori had never been in the ocean in her life.” Shooting the surfing sequences proved to be quite a challenge for all involved with Swayze cracking four of his ribs. For many of the surfing scenes he refused to use a stunt double as he never had one for fight scenes or car chases. He also did the skydiving scenes himself, which is insane but there’s total commitment for you.

Ever since Near Dark (1987), Kathryn Bigelow has shown an aptitude for well-choreographed action sequences but nothing on the level of what she would accomplish in Point Break. First up, is the raid on the red herring bank robbers that Bigelow expertly orchestrates by building the tension as she establishes all the combatants and then the inevitable explosion of violence that culminates in an exciting struggle over the blades of a lawnmower. This is just a warm-up however, for the next action sequence where Utah catches the Ex-Presidents robbing a bank and pursues their leader on foot after an exciting car chase through backyards and in the insides of houses in a suburb. The cameras pursue the two men as if we are chasing them (or sometimes being chased by them). Incredibly, Bigelow would top this sequence with an even more daringly choreographed chase scene in Strange Days (1995), albeit from a first-person point-of-view.

Amazingly, Point Break received positive to mixed reviews from critics. Roger Ebert gave the film three-and-a-half stars out of four and wrote, "Bigelow is an interesting director for this material. She is interested in the ways her characters live dangerously for philosophical reasons. They aren't men of action, but men of thought who choose action as a way of expressing their beliefs.” In her review for The New York Times, Janet Maslin praised Reeves' performance: "A lot of the snap comes, surprisingly, from Mr. Reeves, who displays considerable discipline and range. He moves easily between the buttoned-down demeanor that suits a police procedural story and the loose-jointed manner of his comic roles.” However, Entertainment Weekly gave the film a "C+" rating and Owen Gleiberman wrote, "Point Break makes those of us who don't spend our lives searching for the ultimate physical rush feel like second-class citizens. The film turns reckless athletic valor into a new form of aristocracy.”

In his review for the Washington Post, Hal Hinson wrote, "A lot of what Bigelow puts up on the screen bypasses the brain altogether, plugging directly into our viscera, our gut. The surfing scenes in particular are majestically powerful, even awe-inspiring. Bigelow's picture is a feast for the eyes, but we watch movies with more than our eyes. She seduces us, then asks us to be bimbos." Rolling Stone magazine's Peter Travers wrote, "Bigelow can't keep the film from drowning in a sea of surf-speak. But without her, Point Break would be no more than an excuse to ogle pretty boys in wet suits."

Point Break is the epitome of a guilty pleasure: too dumb to defend rationally but with action sequences too cool to dismiss totally. It’s a big, loud comic book of a film and it knows it and has the conviction to go for it. Where most action films have a tendency to collapse under the weight of their collective clichés, Point Break works because of them. It would pave the way for Reeves to reach greater heights in the action genre with Speed and then, much to everyone’s amazement, take it up another level with The Matrix films. They all laid the groundwork for the John Wick movies, which see Reeves build on what he established with his previous action movie work by recapturing the adrenaline rush of visceral action from Point Break with the notion of a self-contained cinematic universe from The Matrix (1999).

SOURCES

"Board Certified." Entertainment Weekly. July 26, 1991.

"Point Break DVD Liner Notes." Point Break: Pure Adrenaline Edition. 20th Century Fox. 2006.

Strauss, Bob. "I'd like to do a lot of different things." The Globe and Mail. July 12, 1991.

Thomas, Karen. "Swayze's latest step." USA Today. July 12, 1991.

Willistein, Paul. "Swayze enjoys bad-guy role in Point Break." Toronto Star. July 17, 1991.

Zuckerman, Esther. "Lori Petty talks Orange Is The New Black and tells an amazing Whitney Houston story." A.V. Club. July 14, 2016.