Lethal Weapon 4 (1998) on Netflix
Sergeants Martin Riggs and Roger Murtaugh find a Chinese smuggling ring when a freighter hits their boat. Murtaugh shelters the Hong family, and the case leads to Triad negotiator Wah Sing Ku.
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- IMDb6.6/10181,927 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes54%
Trailer
Plot summary
Sergeant Martin Riggs and Sergeant Roger Murtaugh, LAPD partners, are fishing in Los Angeles Harbor when a freighter rams Murtaugh's boat. Aboard it they find a Chinese immigrant smuggling operation, and the captain escapes. After an agent sends the passengers back to China, Murtaugh takes in the Hong family, whose grandfather wants to find his uncle, an engraver who paid their passage. With private investigator Leo Getz, the partners trace the smuggling to Benny Chan, a crime boss working from a Chinatown restaurant, and meet Wah Sing Ku, a Triad negotiator who deals with Chan. Lorna Cole is pregnant with Riggs's child, and Rianne Murtaugh is pregnant too but will not name the father.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Lethal Weapon 4 (1998)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- A script called Simon Says, which Warner Bros. wanted to rework into Lethal Weapon 4, was instead bought by 20th Century Fox as a starring vehicle for martial artist Brandon Lee's next film after The Crow. After Lee was killed during the filming of The Crow, Fox reshaped the same script into Die Hard With a Vengeance (1995).
- Joe Pesci was paid $1 million to return as Leo Getz for just three weeks of work, forcing the crew to rewrite scenes around him. Screenwriter Channing Gibson was three-fourths through another draft when Chris Rock was cast, triggering yet another round of rewrites.
SPOILER
Detective Lee Butters, played by Chris Rock, was originally written as a gay character, but once filming began on the police-station scene the crew felt it did not work. He was rewritten on the fly as Rianne Murtaugh's husband and the father of her unborn child, leaving the two sharing only one wordless scene together in the finished film.- Lethal Weapon 4 opened at number one with $34.05 million, ahead of Armageddon and Small Soldiers, and set the record for the biggest July opening weekend ever for a Warner Bros. film, a mark that stood until The Perfect Storm beat it in 2000.
- Stars Mel Gibson and Danny Glover, director Richard Donner, and producer Joel Silver were all given first-dollar gross deals on Lethal Weapon 4, meaning each collected at least 35 cents of every dollar the film earned regardless of the studio's costs.
- Composer Michael Kamen gave each Lethal Weapon lead a signature instrument: Martin Riggs is represented by a guitar and Roger Murtaugh by a saxophone throughout the series, while newcomer detective Lee Butters is accompanied musically by a harmonica.
