Lethal Weapon by Chris Ryan

The aftermath of the Vietnam War, the war on drugs, the CIA, mental illness: These are not the ingredients one would expect from a big-budget action-comedy. But Lethal Weapon is not your typical big-budget action-comedy. The story of Martin Riggs (Mel Gibson) and Roger Murtaugh (Danny Glover) uncovering a conspiracy involving ex-special forces soldiers and L.A.’s drug trade is mostly remembered for spawning the “buddy-cop” genre and spotlighting Gibson’s mullet.

Chris Ryan takes a closer look at Richard Donner’s 1987 film and unearths what it has to say about race, friendship, and aging—and about its co-conspirators Donner, Gibson, Glover, screenwriter Shane Black, and producer Joel Silver. Ryan sifts through the blood, guts, and cocaine of eighties Hollywood to find out what makes this violent and profane artifact so disturbingly mesmerizing.