Lethal Weapon — Creating believable characters in mainstream action movies

How screenwriter Shane Black and director Richard Donner created one of the most loved action movies of the 80s by adding a bit of humanity into the story

Mismatched partners is a movie trope as old as movies themselves and a story about a family man cop partnering up with a loose cannon ready for the mental asylum is not a unique story in itself.

But Lethal Weapon has managed to stay watchable decades past its original premiere in 1987. One of the reasons why Lethal Weapon has captured our attention for so long is the amount of depth there is to the characters.

Martin Riggs (played by Mel Gibson) and Roger Murtaugh (played by Danny Glover) are not perfect. They have flaws, vices, and internal demons. This is what makes them ten times more interesting than your average characters in mainstream Hollywood movies.

Setups

Screenwriter Shane Black added some small setups and payoffs to provide arcs for the main characters.

However, since this is an action movie, there are some limits of how much a screenwriter can focus on building the characters in the story. After all, the audience paid their admission fee to the cinema expecting a fair amount of exciting gunfights and high-speed car chases. It has to be quick and to the point. And this is where Shane Black excels.

The first time we see Riggs, he’s in a sorry state. Sitting alone in his trailer home drinking heavily and loading his gun ready to blow his own head off. He is looking at a picture of his recently departed wife and is crying. He is hurting, and we feel it with him. Losing a loved one would drive anyone crazy.

So now you know

Soon thereafter we get the suicide jumper scene, where we get the first setup establishing how crazy Riggs really is. Murtaugh angrily drags him into an empty store and confronts him.

Page 42 of the screenplay

“So now you know” — a comment just as much geared towards the audience as towards Murtaugh. Riggs doesn’t care about blowing his head off. Even though he didn’t do it in the scene in the trailer, we see now that he is capable of doing it nonetheless.

I do it real good, you know

About halfway through the movie, we get a subtler setup of Riggs’ character. The following small exchange happens right after Murtaugh invites Riggs over for dinner.

They sit drinking beers in Murtaugh’s boat, reflecting over the progress in their current case. The scene ends with Murtaugh walking Riggs to his car.

Page 55 of the screenplay

Riggs opens up to Murtaugh. Not a lot, but just a little. Losing his wife has, of course, affected his mental state, but he’s lost in the world, trying hard to find his place and find meaning in it again.

This is not the deepest of deep characterizations you will find in modern cinema, nor is it profound in the very sense of the word. However, it works exceptionally well in this context. It works because it gives Riggs a broader tapestry than that of a crazy cop.

I’m not crazy

The final payoff comes right before the movie ends. We see Riggs swinging by Murtaugh’s house to wish him and his family a Merry Christmas. Murtaugh comes out. He says that Riggs must be crazy if he thinks that he’ll sit and eat his wife’s horrible cooking without his partner by his side. And Riggs responds “I’ll tell you a little secret. I’m not crazy”, to which Murtaugh says “I know.”