Lethal Weapon (1987)

Despite its reputation as a great popcorn action-comedy, this ugly, brutish movie isn’t very fun. Screenwriter Shane Black’s characters are sketched with more depth than you’d expect for this kind of fare and Danny Glover is particularly excellent, but this is like the ultimate Reaganite action movie. Lethal Weapon presents a conservative utopia in which America’s problems (here, drugs, crime, and apparently feminism) are settled by gun-toting, vigilante authoritarians. There’s nothing satirical or even eye-winking about it, like you’d expect from a Verhoeven film or most of Schwarzenegger’s good work. Black’s one-liner game definitely hadn’t taken off yet either (some really flop here), although Richard Donner’s camerawork is excellent and music by Eric Clapton gives the film a soulful tone.