Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
Cast: Damon Wayans, Clayne Crawford, Jordana Brewster, Keesha Sharp, Kevin Rahm, Johnathan Fernandez, Michelle Mitchenor, Chandler Kinney, Dante Brown, Thomas Lennon, Hilarie Burton, Tony Plana, Andrew Patrick Ralston, Andrew Creer, Kristen Gutoskie, Rex Linn, Peter Coventry Smith, Chase Magnum, Sophia Woodward.
If there is an American drama that frames the modern situation on the streets of its major cities, then perhaps Lethal Weapon is the one that in the future television and society psychiatrists might look to as being the one that understands the dichotomy of its relaxed gun laws and the mess in which such lives are quite often driven into.
Lethal Weapon is not showing anything that hasn’t been perhaps down before with the allusions to violence and crime, its premise of the buddy film long established in the remarkable story line that was captured with Danny Glover and Mel Gibson, what it does do though is piece together the reason for much of America’s sadness when it comes to the polarising view on gun control and the countries dogged resistance to change.
In the second series of the television adaptation of the successful film franchise, both Riggs and Murtaugh, portrayed with quite a degree of artistic satisfaction by Clayne Crawford and Damon Wayans, have taken this almost split personality to an even greater depth of understanding. The way of the criminal and the detective is perhaps even more merged in America than anywhere else in the world; this is not one blurred by corruption but blind rationale in the belief that people are protected if they have the ability to hide behind a gun.
In the United States of America the show perhaps is seen differently, the buddy film transferring gently to the smaller screen, the weapon more the human being, the loose cannon out of control but Clayne Crawford plays that particular suit with a more robust agenda, not as insane as Mel Gibson’s much loved version but more damaged, the family the man deserved snatched from him time and time again, except where it matters, his relationship with the Murtaughs, the clever interaction with his psychotherapist, the excellent Jordana Brewster, and the blossoming rekindling of childhood memories with his friend Molly, played with sincerity by Kristen Gutoskie.
The second series is a grittier affair than the first, the undercurrent of the ultra-right wing American ideal leaving a distinctly unsettling taste in the mouth. The reunion with Martin Riggs and his unspeakably awful father one that frames the madness in the mind of the detective, overall it is a theme that has to be unquestionably investigated and asked questions of. The split personality that is perhaps mooted is not in the gun law but in the utter contemptible political division that makes the issue prevalent; sort out one, the other will surely follow.
A very good series, one with a few distractions but one that overall followed the intriguing first series down a path of enjoyable television.
Ian D. Hall