LETHAL WEAPON
He called me ‘kid’ all the time,” laughs Shane Black, looking back at his time watching Donner turn his hot spec screenplay, Lethal Weapon, into an even hotter blockbuster. “But very quickly I realised he used a lot of bluff, over-the-top mannerisms. He was so much deeper and so much more of a sensitive guy. He was sentimental, which surprised me. These things that showed up in his movies, like saving dolphins from tuna nets in Lethal Weapon 2, were social issues he cared very deeply about.”
That, of course, is not the primary reason why the Lethal Weapon series became the standout success of Donner’s career. In particular, the first movie, which pairs Mel Gibson’s suicidal loose cannon with Danny Glover’s beleaguered family man on the verge of retirement, brought a fresh eye and deliciously foul mouth to some familiar beats, reinvigorated a genre, and launched a thousand imitators. Black believes it’s the focus on the characters, on the relationship between Riggs and Murtaugh, that sets that movie apart. “The interpersonal dynamics of buddies was very important to him,” he says. “Lethal Weapon was unapologetically a buddy film, and he was wonderful at mining the sort of obtuse, interesting ways that people spoke to each other, or barked at each other, saying very little but conveying much.” It’s the little touches that Black remembers; those seemingly unimportant additions to the script that wind up becoming an indelible part of its fabric. “There was a grimness to the original script, despite the banter,” says Black. “And Dick managed to bring a levity to it. It felt like a movie about two people. And he would find little moments of life, the most obvious example being something that wasn’t in the script.” Namely, the introduction to Murtaugh, whose peaceful soak is interrupted by his entire family crashing into the bathroom to wish him a happy 50th birthday. “I mean, that’s kind of counterintuitive. Most people wouldn’t think that’s how you open a movie, but that’s Dick thinking: ‘What little bit of oddness and life can I instil into this?’”
The two worked together again on Lethal Weapon 2, although Donner ultimately went in another direction, with another writer. They kept in touch intermittently. “Though not as much as I would have liked or should have,” says Black. “I spoke to him last year. It was always a joy. It was his dream to direct another Lethal Weapon, to bring closure to the series, and it’s sad that it didn’t happen quickly enough.”