Lethal Weapon (1987)

Buddy-based L.A. police drama that’s very much an inferior version of Beverly Hills Cop. I wanted to see what all the fuss was about, but I couldn’t really. 

Mel Gibson plays a “troubled” policeman wrestling with bereavement and mental health issues. He’s teamed up with Danny Glover to investigate the death of a woman who appears to have leaped from an apartment balcony. 

It’s a little hammy, the villains (including Gary Busey) are woefully one-dimensional and it feels very “TV movie” in places. But Gibson and Glover work well together, with a certain chemistry, even though the macho aspects of the plot are ludicrous. At the end, for example, Gibson engages in a lengthy fight with the villain when he could have simply arrested him. 

To some extent, you have to buy into Gibson’s whole style – twitchy and “on the edge” – for the film to work at all. If you can’t engage with his persona, or you find him merely ridiculous, then you’re left with a fairly ordinary thriller. 

My copy is the “director’s cut” but I’ve no idea what was removed or added for this version. 

It’s worth watching if you’re curious about 1980s blockbusters, as I am, but I don’t ever need to see it again.

A Star Is Born (1976)

The third of the four filmed versions of this story. Kris Kristofferson is the drinking, drug-taking rock star whose career is on the wane. Barbra Streisand is the bright young talent he helps rise up the ladder to fame and who will quickly eclipse his own success. 

The music is lively and the concert scenes seem convincingly “real”. The couple have chemistry and charisma. It was a wise move to cast two genuine singers to play these two performers, as they seem so natural on stage. 

I like the fact that John Norman Howard’s untimely demise in a high/speed car crash can be interpreted as a reckless accident or a suicide, depending on how you choose to read the character and the emotional/chemical state he’s in. Unlike the 2018 Bradley Cooper/Lady Gaga film (in which there’s no doubt that he’s a tragic addict who kills himself), this more nuanced version has the confidence to allow some ambiguity – rather than spelling everything out for you – and I admire that quality. In the same way, the managers in this film (whose roles are handled well by Gary “Buddy Holly” Busey and Paul Mazursky) aren’t simplistically ruthless or exploitative. They seem much more like real people with real conflicts. 

Joan Didion had a hand in writing it, which may account for the refreshingly intelligent approach.