Part 2: Lethal Weapon 2 (Peri-Peri style)
Welcome back to my public hyperfixation, folks! Today we’re diving into the second installment in the Lethal Weapon series, the last written by Shane Black, with a running counter for Danny Glover’s utterances of “Riggs”, among other things. Off we go!
Lethal Weapon 2 continues a pattern for Lethal Weapon films, kicking off with a cold open before stepping into our main plot line, with themes and B stories foreshadowed in the offing.
In our opening car chase, we join Riggs and Murtaugh driving Trish’s station wagon, screaming through a tunnel in hot pursuit of a suspect in a BMW. Trish’s poor car is in for a rough existence and finishes the film barely functional and completely uninsurable.
Screaming out of the tunnel, we intersect with one of our new supporting characters for the film, Detective Tim Cavanaugh (Dean Norris, who had a notable supporting role in Total Recall, but is more recently renowned for his role as Breaking Bad’s Hank Schrader).
We catch our first of many Riggs’s as the suspects they’re after sit up out the window of their car and fire off two shotgun rounds, taking out the station wagon’s windshield.
After some rough maneuvering through a hotel roundabout, Riggs takes off on foot after a car once again, having learned no lessons from the previous movie. As Murtaugh catches up, he fires off four Riggs’s in quick succession, our first indicator that the rate of Riggsing is set to skyrocket compared to the first film.
Turning to Norris’s chase, the suspects in the second car are cornered at the top of an overpass, where, after some indiscriminate automatic weapons fire, have somehow managed to bring in a helicopter to facilitate their escape. There’s either a surplus of affordable helicopters in Los Angeles or some very lax licensing requirements, as so far, every organization seems to have their mitts on one or more.
Meanwhile, Riggs and Murtaugh corner the suspect in the BMW, who flips his car into a storefront. After a quick Riggs to scold him for his driving, the pair introduce a new trope, disagreeing about whether “On 3” means on 3 or after 3.
Their quarry escaping, they search the area for him, including his trunk, and find a pile of krugerrands. That, combined with a bit of Afrikaans over the radio, is our introduction to a South African flavor to the installment.
Back at the station, Murtaugh and the Captain have a quick walk and gripe before cutting to Riggs showing off his straight jacket escape trick to the Detective pool. As Riggs flails about, we get a quick look at a whole host of character actors as supporting cast, including Meagan Shapiro (Jenette Goldstein, Aliens’ Private Vasquez) and Eddie Esteban (Nestor Serrano, who is a certified “Hey, it’s that guy” actor, with 128 roles in everything from 24 to The Day After Tomorrow to The Money Pit), They think they’re about to collect on a bet that he can’t escape within 5 minutes, before Riggs shows his stupid human trick: That he can dislocate his shoulder at will. I’m sure that won’t come up again later.
After popping his shoulder sickeningly back into the socket, we get a quick visit from series regular (the still unnamed) Stephanie Woods.
Afterwards, we catch a Riggs as reproval, as he spills to the detective pool that Murtaugh’s daughter Rianne will be starring in a commercial. He arrives home to show off the new addition on the house (that surely won’t end up in a shambles later) and chit chat with his carpenter (literally, he just gets “Carpenter” in the billing) (Jack McKee, another veteran character actor with 222 roles from Basic Instinct to Moneyball to episode parts in all three CSIs). He fires off a nailgun, making the detectives jump and ensuring that we see it being placed on the proverbial mantle for later.
Some quick banter indoors before Rianne’s big break, reminding us that in the late 80s we were very concerned with dolphin-safe tuna, and then we see the main event: Seems she’s the new face of Ramses Extra condoms. Roger is…nonplussed.
Off we go to a very turn of the 90s office, in sharp grays with a giant fish tank, before meeting the two villains of this installment, Arjen Rudd (Joss Ackland, who, after a long career in Europe, came to prominence in the US with this role, followed by The Mighty Ducks, The Hunt for Red October, and Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey, where he catches one hell of a melvin.) and Pieter Vorstedt (Derrick O’Connor, for whom this was his largest role, but who also had parts in Brazil, Alias, and the Daredevil movie).
The subject of our earlier chase scene, Hans (Mark Rolston, who might be most recognized as Andy Dufresne’s nemesis in The Shawshank Redemption), steps over some very conspicuous plastic sheeting on the floor. His reward for losing the million dollars in krugerrands is a bullet to the head and an epitaph from Pieter making a pun about drop cloths.
As Pieter wraps up the body, they discuss their plans to handle an overbearing police presence, specifically our lead detective, Sgt. Murtaugh.
We cut to Riggs and Trish Murtaugh, him making dinner, her parcelling out various plastic bags of medication, and telling us the backstory of how Riggs’ wife died, in a car accident, and its tie-in with a gold pen Trish found in the laundry. It’s a bit of backstory we’ll come back to later.
Afterwards, Riggs is at home, drinking with Sam the dog, and watching the Three Stooges, which Sam seems to enjoy as much as Riggs does.
Meanwhile, Roger tosses and turns in bed, then wakes to find four balaclavaed men duct-taping he and Trish. Pieter and his crew hover over them, delivering a clear threat to back off the investigation, with some rather racist invective.
Back at the station, after Roger fills his partner in and a fateful detectives’ poker game is organized, they’re assigned to watch an informant waiting on behalf of the FBI. One Leo Getz.
Welcome Joe Pesci to the series! (I’ll not do you the disservice of assuming you don’t know Joe Pesci’s other work, including his album Little Joe Sure Can Sing.)
Leo’s a fixer, a money launderer, and later a real estate agent, and then a private detective. For now, he’s a state’s witness with a nervous tick for the word “Ok”. No, I will not count the Oks, ok? Ok.
“Room service” arrives to deliver the wrong meal and a bullet for desert, before Riggs rushes him and sends them both, plus Leo, out what might be the most easily broken hotel window in history, down somewhere around 7 stories, and into the hotel pool. Shane Black really loves a pool gag.1Later, another detective takes a dive into a pool from the roof of a hotel in a Shane Black movie, The Nice Guys. At least Martin doesn’t have a vision of Richard Nixon.
A little mixup in the water has Riggs punching out Leo’s nose as the assailant makes a getaway. While they catch their breath poolside and Murtaugh catches up, Leo explains just why someone is trying to kill him: he laundered half a billion dollars in drug money. Which, yeah, that’d probably do it.
A quick clip of Rudd and Vorstedt complaining they missed their shot and we head to the Murtaugh residence to watch Riggs and Murtaugh eat cold spaghetti straight from a the container while Leo explains how money laundering works.
While the modern television viewer has been well informed about money laundering via Breaking Bad, Ozark, and many other crime dramas, viewers in this era might not be clear on the workings. Unfortunately, Leo’s explanation seems a bit muddled and doesn’t cover how any of this avoids KYC laws or deposit limits or whatnot. It is, however, a rather stock method for laundering funds utilizing a lack of knowledge around who the beneficial owner is of the dummy corporation doing the switcheroo.
Leo explains that he keeps a 2% fee for his trouble, which means he pulled in $10M or so from the standard laundry setup before he skimmed his extra piece off the top. Which, considering how prosperous the work already was, makes one wonder why an extra 10-20 thousand here and there was worth it in the end. I suppose that’s an unfamiliarity with the criminal mindset for you.
Anyhow, Leo shrinks Riggs’ shirt and then recalls the one connection he had to the dealers directly: a house up in the Hollywood Hills and a man named Hans. Hans might be tricky to track down, given we watched him rolled up in a plastic drop cloth fifteen minutes ago, but the house is still standing. For now.
Arriving at the home built into a hillside, Riggs sneaks in pretending to be a pool cleaner (Shane LOVES a pool gag) and finds two besuited men in the middle of counting out bills. They’re interrupted by a third, our fake hotel waiter, who runs off in a tow truck, with Riggs, as always, chasing after on foot.
One more Riggs out of Danny Glover, plus one from Pesci that doesn’t count here, and they’re off in pursuit in Trish’s station wagon once again.
A high-speed chase through the Hollywood Hills has Riggs lose his gun, and then Leo and Murtaugh inexplicably stopping to pick it up from the side of the road. Their vision here is absolutely incredible. They’re speeding down the road, in pursuit of Riggs and the “waiter”, and yet not only see the gun on the side of the road, they stop in time for Leo to run out and retrieve it, before picking up the chase. I can only assume this was thrown in to fix some continuity error later.
Off we go down the road before the wackiest bit of hijinks yet finds the tow-truck at a complete stop, Murtaugh running into the car it’s towing, shooting it up over the lowered flatbed, then THAT car impacting with a truck carrying a surfboard, which flies off back in the opposite direction and kills our “bellhop”. The physics and circumstance here are incredible, for both senses of the word.2Thankfully, Mythbusters took the time to really dive into things in Episode 154, which, as expected, was busted to hell: https://mythresults.com/reverse-engineering
Back at the house on stilts, the entire detective core rushes the house, finding the earlier money men, plus Arjen and Pieter, where Arjen introduces himself to the detectives as the Minister of Diplomatic Affairs for the South African consulate, and explains that everyone there works for the consulate as well. A quick Riggs out of Glover produces a reaction of recognition in Pieter, who confirms he has The Martin Riggs in his presence.
Arjen goes on to explain that “under the Diplomatic Relations Act, no diplomatic agent may be detained or arrested once his identity has been established.” He goes on to threaten to talk with the State Department, and claim that the house is owned by the South African government, and so is South African territory.
I’m not a lawyer, so I’m not going to get deep into the weeds on how this isn’t actually how diplomatic immunity works (for more, go listen to Stuff You Should Know (https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/whats-the-deal-with-diplomatic-immunity) or read any of the other explainers on the internet about it). This being a movie, we’re just gonna go with it for the sake of enjoying things. Plus, why ruin the climax?
Upstairs, Riggs literally bumps into another member of the consulate, Rika Van Den Haas (Patsy Kensit, who got her start in The Great Gatsby at 4 years old, per IMDB) for a little meet cute.
A little more exposition at the station and then at Miss Van Den Haas’s apartment, and we get to Arjen making clear more needs to be done about the police issue.
A quick trip to Subway and we get the first of a series of Leo Getz rants about places they fuck you. In this instance, they fuck you at the drive-through. Later installments let us know we also get fucked with the cellphones.
The next day, Martin does some very conspicuous tailing of Rudd, following him back to the consulate where a crowd of protesters is gathered outside, to rally for an end to Apartheid and the freeing of Nelson Mandela.3Interestingly, the movie was released in July of 1989, right around when P.W. Botha, president of South Africa, was meeting with Nelson Mandela directly. Six weeks later, the new South African president, F. W. de Klerk would take power and would, in February of 1990, release Mandela from prison. Upstairs, Rika seems rather charmed by Martin’s antics on the CC TV.
Arriving back at home, Riggs finds Leo cleaning his beach trailer, where he gets a call that Murtaugh hasn’t checked in for the day. Over at the Murtaugh residence, Riggs hears Roger yelling from inside and, upstairs, finds him sitting on the toilet, in what might be the most classic bit from the film.
Riggs explains the situation: that he sat down on the commode the night before for some quiet time, reading about marlin fishing, and found a note on the toilet paper saying “Boom! You’re dead!”
A little fun wordplay about scaring the shit out of him, then Riggs leans down to find a stack of explosives running to a wire at the back of the toilet.
One quick “Riggs” as Roger begs him to keep it quiet, before we get every emergency service organization in LA out on the front lawn.
Jarvis Becker from the bomb squad (Kenneth Tigar, who has a long career of TV work and will reunite with Donner and Gibson in Conspiracy Theory) explains how they’ll look to freeze the bomb with liquid nitrogen while Roger dives into the cast iron tub, and here we have our second Mythbusters plot of the movie4Covered in Episode 178: https://mythresults.com/toilet-bomb, this one confirmed! Not only could Riggs have pulled Murtaugh off the toilet in time, but the liquid nitrogen would have stalled the explosion long enough to have worked, as well as the cast iron tub protecting from lethal concussive force from 1 kg of C-4. As outlandish as the situation is, it’s apparently incredibly accurately rendered.
It turns out Murtaugh isn’t too old for this shit (🥁). After some quick clarification this time on whether On 3 means on 3 or ON 3, they share a brief moment between men, then dive for the tub.
The station wagon suffers once again as the toilet is thrown onto its hood, but the boys come through mostly unscathed.
Afterwards, we cut to the Consulate where Leo and Roger kick off a little gag about emigrating to South Africa, as a distraction, while Riggs sneaks upstairs for some snooping.
Up in the fancy 80’s office, Riggs does some light diplomatic threatening before a quick “Hey Moe!” and some violence against the fish tank.5Fish tank abuse comes up again in The Nice Guys. Shane loves a trope!
Downstairs, he runs into Rika again before meeting up with Murtaugh and Getz in the car, showing them a note reading “Alba Varden, Thursday.” But who is Alba Varden?
A quick cut back to the office for us to be sure Rudd and Vorstedt noticed Riggs took the note and we’re off to the supermarket, where Riggs runs into Rika yet again, to give her some advice about grocery shopping in America after a little light stalking. Martin insists on Rika coming to his place for dinner, throws in another Stooges bit, then drags her off to the beach.
Rika and Martin have a conversation about how Arjen is using his credentials to commit crimes, before we see some more of those crimes play out.
Pieter executes one detective in their home, then Shapiro blows up on the diving board of her pool in what must have been a fun day for the stuntwoman. (LOVES a pool gag.)
Martin and Rika start to get friendly, before we see another explosion, this time at Cavanaugh’s house during the planned poker game.
The Captain puts calls out to find the officers who haven’t been killed, and we see Riggs and Rika continuing their fun evening in, then find Murtaugh and Getz holed up at a hotel. Roger realizes where he’d seen Alba Varden before and drags Leo back to his house to review a video he took from his boat to confirm his suspicion (though not before Leo lets us know he’s really enjoying Rianne’s commercial work).
Meanwhile outside, Leo is taken away by some “consulate employees” and Murtaugh fends off an attack from a third, then a fourth, before putting the nail gun to a use almost certainly forbidden in the user manual. “Nailed ‘em both.” is our reward. He stumbles back outside to realize Leo, and the poor, poor station wagon, are gone.
Back at the beach, amid a roll in the sheets, two helicopters come storming in over the ocean and light up the trailer with automatic weapons fire. Under a rain of bullets, Martin and Rika escape out Sam’s door in the floor, then Rika makes a run for the truck as the helicopters land nearby.
Martin, meanwhile, throws in another “Hey Moe!” while taking out two of the South Africans on the beach, then kills three more while spraying bullets from the roof of the trailer.
Martin takes out one more in the other helicopter while they collect Sam and head back to Rika’s apartment. After an extended goodbye, Riggs is ambushed while Rika is collected offscreen.
Down at the dock we find Pieter and a burlap-sacked Riggs having a conversation about their previously untold history together. Pieter explains that Riggs was investigating their organization 4 years prior and they put out a contract on him. Pieter, it turns out, is the one that ran Mrs. Riggs off the road to her death, thinking he was killing Martin. Why we needed to write in more motivation for Riggs is beyond me, but that’s why I don’t make the Shane Black money.
Pieter takes off and his flunkies throw Riggs into the ocean, where he pulls a repeat of his straight-jacket escape. Down at the bottom of the pier, Riggs finds Rika, tied up and drowned.
His vengeance upon coming back to the surface is swift and fierce.
Back on the move, Riggs calls in to the station and gets Murtaugh on the line. He explains that the South Africans came after him, and that they killed both Rika and his wife. Murtaugh tries to explain that there’s more going on. Riggs makes clear that tonight is not about justice, it’s about vengeance. Oh, and we get 10 Riggs’ out of Roger in a 50 second span. Martin tells him he’s heading back to the stilt house. Roger tosses his badge in the desk, then follows after.
Down at the house in the Hills, we find Leo being tortured by Pieter and his men. After a quick discussion outside, Roger and Martin initiate a plan to go in and rescue Leo while getting some revenge against the South Africans.
Riggs has roped his truck around one of the house’s stilts and proceeds to pull the house off the hillside, as Murtaugh runs in, kills two more, and drags Leo outside.
After some quick reminiscing and a fateful “Give the little fellow a hug, you’ll be lucky if you see him again.”, Riggs and Murtaugh head off for the Alba Varden.
Down below the ship, they get out and investigate a container being guarded by three men. They drag the men off and no gunfire is shown, so I’m going to assume they just got “knocked out”. Inside the container, they realize they’re staring at a car and pallets full of plastic-wrapped stacks of US currency.
Amid a discussion about the ethics of Murtaugh pocketing a stack of thousand dollar bills, Rudd and his men close them up in the container and lift it to put it onboard the Varden.
Apparently they left the keys inside, as the detectives make an escape by throwing the car through the pallets of cash, the container’s door, and into the waters of the port. While the South Africans fire wildly after the car and what they think are our heroes, Murtaugh drops an “I’m too old for this shit” and they repel down from the midair container to the deck below, taking out two of the guards on the way down.
Martin eliminates four more guards down in the storage area, done with enough rolling and shooting to make Police Constable Danny Butterman gaze in awe.
In comes a knife! Riggs takes a dagger to the calf as Pieter emerges from the shadows and starts a series of kicks to Riggs. While upstairs Roger kills a guard, Riggs and Pieter go at it below, in some brutal hand to foot to knife combat, before Riggs overpowers his foe and knifes him in the guts. Then, a knife wound being too easy a way out, he hobbles over and drops the freight container on his head.
Roger, meanwhile, finds Riggs from the deck above, shouts for him, then dives for cover as Arjen starts firing at him with a thematically appropriate Luger.
After Murtaugh draws down on him, Arjen holds up his credentials, leading to this climactic moment:
Three more Riggs’s as Roger runs to his partner, a little Bob Dylan musical fake out with a soundtrack cue of “Knocking on Heaven’s Door”, then two more Riggs’s as Roger explains that Riggs isn’t allowed to die until he tells him to.
Riggs asks for his cigarettes, then asks Roger to throw them away, as “those things’ll kill ya” (a callback for our next adventure in Lethal Weapon 3), as we pull away to the credits.
Our scores!
And, with two datapoints to work with, some graphs!
Our overall Riggs! count is nearly quintupled, while Body Count is up slightly, I’m Too Old For This Shits are down considerably, and we have four times the Stooges references.
Murtaugh sees a more significant percentage of the body count here (including one via physics-defying surfboard decapitation.) while Riggs levels off slightly.
Join us next time for Lethal Weapon 3, where Joe Pesci returns with a truly 90’s blonde dye job, we’re introduced to Rene Russo as new series regular Lorna, and we tackle some internecine conflict within the LAPD and the gang violence epidemic.
Notes:
- 1Later, another detective takes a dive into a pool from the roof of a hotel in a Shane Black movie, The Nice Guys. At least Martin doesn’t have a vision of Richard Nixon.
- 2Thankfully, Mythbusters took the time to really dive into things in Episode 154, which, as expected, was busted to hell: https://mythresults.com/reverse-engineering
- 3Interestingly, the movie was released in July of 1989, right around when P.W. Botha, president of South Africa, was meeting with Nelson Mandela directly. Six weeks later, the new South African president, F. W. de Klerk would take power and would, in February of 1990, release Mandela from prison.
- 4Covered in Episode 178: https://mythresults.com/toilet-bomb
- 5Fish tank abuse comes up again in The Nice Guys. Shane loves a trope!