Lethal Weapon 3

**_More fun and dynamic police action with Mel Gibson and Danny Glover_** Riggs & Murtaugh (Gibson and Glover) team-up with a kick-axx internal affairs officer (Rene Russo) to take down an ex-cop (Stuart Wilson) who’s smuggling confiscated guns to L.A. gangs. Joe Pesci is also on hand. "Lethal Weapon 3" (1992) is more-of-the-same in the successful series helmed by Richard Donner. Like the first two, it’s an over-the-top cop thriller with amusing camaraderie and rapid-fire banter. You have to roll with the outrageousness in order to enjoy it, just as you do with similar cop thrillers, like "The Gauntlet" (1977), although that one’s superior, as are the Dirty Harry flicks IMHO. Of the first three, I marginally prefer the second one (1989), but this one is entertaining enough. The film runs 1 hour, 58 minutes, and was shot in the greater Los Angeles area with some stuff done in Florida (like the building blowing up at the end, which was shot in St. Petersburg). GRADE: B-

With barely more than a week to go until “Murtaugh” (Danny Glover) retires, he and his now uniformed (and pony-tailed) partner “Riggs” (Mel Gibson) thwart an armoured car robbery and arrest the culprit. Before he can be rigorously interrogated, though, his brains get splattered against the walls of the interview room and our intrepid duo are charged by “Murphy” (Steve Kazan) to work with the IAD detective “Lorna” (Rene Russo) and track down the perpetrator. It takes them all of five minutes to work out that they have to track down rogue “Lt. Travis” (Stuart Wilson) who is involved in a nefarious gun-running enterprise. Finding him might have got a little easier when realtor “Getz” (Joe Pesci) reckons he has seem him somewhere so that starts them on a trail of the usual pyrotechnics, shoot ‘em ups and car chases which, along the way, sees “Murtaugh” enter a depth of despair that only his pal can drag him from as “Travis” has now made everything just a little bit more personal. It is at it’s best when it is just Gibson and Glover, the pithy script and some wise-cracking but I found the burgeoning romance between “Riggs” and “Lorna” a bit of a drag and the only highlight from the downright annoying Pesci is on his head. It’s a solid story well executed by a director who keeps the pace moving whilst letting the two stars clearly have some high-octane fun. I reckon it is the weakest of the three so far, but it’s still watchable escapism.