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Lethal Weapon

By DAVID WEINER

It's easy to forget that before Mel Gibson was defined by The Passion of the Christ, his drunken anti-Semitic slurs and surreptitiously recorded off-camera rants at the mother of his out-of-wedlock child, he was at one time the biggest box-office draw in Hollywood. Cast as suicidal cop Martin Riggs opposite Danny Glover's about-to-retire Roger Murtaugh in 1987's Lethal Weapon, the film was a surprise smash and spawned three highly profitable sequels over the next decade, with each one getting more and more comedic as the series progressed (with the help of such comic relief as Joe Pesci and Chris Rock). The success of Lethal Weapon reinvigorated -- and practically buried -- the tired buddy cop genre with countless imitators and spoofs (see National Lampoon's Loaded Weapon starring Emilio Estevez and Samuel L. Jackson), and steadfastly refused to enter the grunge-fueled '90s with its '80s cop clichés and embarrassingly bass-and-saxophone-heavy, Eric Clapton guitar-driven soundtrack.

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