Richard Donner's 1998 conclusion opens with Riggs and Murtaugh in full body armour, facing a flamethrower-wielding maniac on a freeway. It is a sequence that captures the film's essential quality: big, warm, and slightly out of control. Lethal Weapon 4 is too long and too crowded, but it is also genuinely fond of its characters, and that affection carries it further than its dramatic limitations might suggest.
At a Glance
Director: Richard Donner
Runtime: 127 minutes
Starring: Mel Gibson, Danny Glover, Joe Pesci, Rene Russo, Jet Li, Chris Rock
Release: 1998
Critics Rating: ★★ (2/5 stars, bloated but affectionate)
Audience Rating: ★★★ (3/5 stars, a fond farewell)
Plot
Riggs and Murtaugh, now both facing impending fatherhood, investigate a Chinese immigrant smuggling operation run by a Triad enforcer named Wah Sing Ku. The plot is the series' most structurally confused, a narrative of adequate complexity overwhelmed by the number of characters and subplots competing for screen time. The Chinese immigrant storyline is handled with enough intelligence to give the film a human concern beyond its action mechanics, and the sympathy extended to the smuggled families gives the picture a moral dimension that prevents it from becoming purely mechanical. The domestic subplots are handled with a lightness and wit that makes them the picture's most purely enjoyable passages, though their cumulative weight gives the film a diffuseness that its 127-minute runtime cannot fully justify.
Characters
Riggs and Murtaugh's partnership is given its most explicitly valedictory treatment here, a relationship that the film acknowledges has reached a natural conclusion and that it resolves with a domestic completeness that gives both characters the endings they have earned. Gibson and Glover play the established dynamic with a warmth and naturalism that makes the valedictory register feel earned rather than merely sentimental. Jet Li's Wah Sing Ku is the series' most physically imposing villain, a martial artist of such terrifying capability that his action sequences are the picture's most exciting passages. Li plays the character with a stillness and menace that makes Wah Sing Ku the series' most physically intimidating presence, and his fight sequences with Gibson are the film's most purely cinematic moments. Chris Rock's Lee Butters is the film's most divisive addition, a character of considerable comic energy whose integration into the established dynamic is handled with adequate competence but without the organic naturalness of Leo Getz's introduction. Pesci's Leo Getz is given his most reduced role, a presence of comic energy and diminishing narrative function whose scenes are the film's most purely nostalgic passages.
Meaning / Themes
At its core, the film is about the completion of the journey that the series began in 1987, the transformation of a suicidal loner and a cautious family man into two men who have found in each other and in their extended family the connections that give their lives meaning. This is handled with enough warmth and conviction to make the series' conclusion feel satisfying despite the more limited elements that surround it. The immigrant smuggling storyline adds a secondary concern with family and belonging that echoes the series' central theme, giving the more spectacular action elements a human grounding that the more purely mechanical entries did not always achieve.
Direction
Donner's direction is the series' most relaxed and most affectionate, a work of professional competence and genuine fondness for the characters that gives the film a warmth its dramatic limitations cannot entirely undermine. The action sequences are the series' most visually inventive since Lethal Weapon 2, primarily because of Li's remarkable physical capabilities, and Donner is wise enough to give Li the space to demonstrate them without over-editing the choreography into incoherence. Donner pitches the film at the series' most overtly comedic register, a decision that suits the valedictory ambitions of this entry but that occasionally overwhelms the more seriously intended elements. The picture is at its most enjoyable in its domestic sequences, where the characters' relationships are most directly expressed and the series' affection for its people is most clearly demonstrated. Michael Kamen's score is as reliable and familiar as ever, providing a warmth and continuity that suits the valedictory register. The film received a mixed critical response on its release, with most reviewers acknowledging the warmth of the central relationships and Li's villain performance while identifying the film's bloat and structural confusion as its central limitations. It is now most frequently discussed as a fond if dramatically limited farewell, notable primarily for Li's action sequences and the warmth of the central relationships' conclusion.
Final Verdict: A bloated but affectionate farewell that gives its characters the domestic resolution they have earned. Li's Wah Sing Ku is the series' most physically imposing villain and the source of the film's most purely exciting action passages, the central relationships are given a warmth and completeness that makes the conclusion feel satisfying, and Donner's direction has a fondness for the characters that gives the film a charm its more limited dramatic elements cannot undermine.