Lethal Weapon

Lethal Weapon, by Joel Norst

March, 1987  Jove Books

Even though I was obsessed with action movies as a kid in the ‘80s, I didn’t see Lethal Weapon until around 2001. It just didn’t seem like an “action movie” to me, a la Rambo or Predator. It seemed more like a cop movie. In fact, I recall thinking it looked like a bigger-budgeted episode of Miami Vice. But as mentioned I finally saw it in 2001, mostly because at the time I was checking out all the films that had been written by Shane Black, a guy who should’ve been huge…sort of a proto-Quentin Tarantino, but it wasn’t until the 2000s that he started directing his own movies. 

Anyway, this Lethal Weapon novelization is notable because presumably it’s based on Shane Black’s original script, and not the revised version that was ultimately filmed. There’s a lot of stuff here that’s not in the movie, and overall I found the novel superior to the movie. Author Joel Norst, aka a novelist named Kirk Mitchell, delivers exactly what you would want from a movie novelization: a novel that stands on its own. He adds background material and thematic work that certainly wasn’t in Black’s script, and there’s a voice of experience in play throughout. It wasn’t until I finished the novel that I learned Kirk Mitchell had been a cop, but I was not surprised; he inserts a lot of cop-world detail in Lethal Weapon, but never to the point that it’s bogged down in “realism.” This is still the novelization of an ‘80s action movie, with the appropriate fireworks…there’s just a lot more emotional grit and introspection here than in the film. 

It's now known that Shane Black claimed his Lethal Weapon script was inspired by Warren Murphy’s Razoni & Jackson series, but that is not evident in the novelization. In fact, the most similar comparison would be the novelization of Hickey & Boggs, which itself was supposedly the inspiration for Razoni & Jackson. What I mean to say is, there’s none of the race-fueled bantering of Razoni & Jackson; the bantering humor here comes more from the disparate personalities of the co-protagonists. In fact race is hardly mentioned; other than the early establishment that Roger Murtaugh (Danny Glover) is black, Mitchell doesn’t beat us over the head with the fact. And absolutely nothing is made out of Murtaugh being paired with white partner Martin Riggs (Mel Gibson). The bigger deal is that Riggs is a nutcase known for his shootouts. 

One thing that doesn’t come off as well in the novelization is the cutesy schtick Shane Black came up with of “M” and “R,” ie Martin Riggs and Roger Murtaugh. In the film you’d never notice, but here in the novel Mitchell will arbitrarily refer to the characters by either first or last name in the narrative. Meaning, you’ll be reading about “Riggs” doing something, and then suddenly he’s being referred to as “Martin,” and your mind initially misreads the “Martin” as “Murtaugh.” Well hell, maybe it’s just me. I found the “Riggs” and “Roger” stuff especially confusing. But this was Black’s way of showing how his heroes were two sides of the same coin; Mitchell takes this into even further thematic territory, carefully establishing in the opening sequences how Roger Murtaugh is terrified of violence intruding into his family life, thus going to exorbitant lengths to ensure their safety. Martin Riggs, meanwhile, walks directly into the path of a sniper without even bothering to crouch for cover. 

Another bit of thematic backstory here in the novel which I’m certain is solely Mitchell’s contribution is that Riggs’s old trainer at the police academy committed suicide; we’re informed that suicide is common among hardbitten cops. Riggs hasn’t taken that step yet, but he’s close; we learn early in the novel that Riggs’s wife of eleven years died just two months ago. Here in the novel it’s established that she had a weak heart due to a childhood bout of rheumatic fever, and one day she just passed on while Riggs was out on the job. Now he keeps his TV constantly on, set to the channel she was watching when she was died (which appears to only play old movies), and he spends most of his days drunk off his ass – that is, when he isn’t engaging in what is now referred to as “toxic masculinity.” 

Reading this Lethal Weapon novelization is a frustrating experience, because it’s another lesson in how the original screenwriter knows how to turn in a compelling story…a compelling story that is ruined by producers, directors, rewriters, and actors. The first quarter in particular is excellent and better than anything in the actual film. We are treated to several instances in which Riggs’s lack of self-care is proven in action. First he stops a random kidnapping attempt when, coming out of a convenience store, he blows away a trio of armed guys who are trying to make off with two young women in their van. Riggs doesn’t even bother calling it in and just high-tails it out of there with his six-pack of beer. There’s another part where he challenges a patrolman to a race to Las Vegas (as in the film, the novel occurs in Los Angeles); here Mitchell shows his cop roots with the patrolman going through the various hoops that will fool his dispatcher into thinking he’s busy for the next few hours. 

This part, while entertaining, just shows how Lethal Weapon comes from a different era; it would be hard to imagine a movie today where the hero cop throws all safety concerns to the wind and races another cop at 130 miles per hour through sleet and rain for several hours, even evading fellow cops along the journey. But it’s still kind of funny, like when Riggs is pulled over by Highway Patrol and comes up with a story that he’s transporting a baboon heart for an emergency operation. Coupled with his wanton drinking and smoking, all this serves to make Martin Riggs seem even more dangerous in our coddled “Nanny State” era than he did in 1987. 

But the most notable element of Riggs’s disinterest in safety is one of the best sequences in the novel, and another that didn’t even make it to the film. Actually it did, but the scene was cut; I recall seeing it as a deleted scene on the DVD. But here in the novel it is so much more powerful – with the added element that it has extra resonance in our post-Uvalde world. Riggs responds to a call that a sniper has holed up outside a daycare; when Riggs gets to the scene, he finds the cops sprawled around and more concerned about their own safety than the kids trapped inside the building with an active shooter. Even though there is a veritable army of cops present, they show no interest in doing anything except waiting for SWAT, which is stuck in traffic. When Riggs is informed by a disinterested cop that one kid was shot in front of everyone and “is probably dead now,” Riggs goes into action. 

None of this material survived in the scene as filmed, which you can see here. I’m not sure if this sequence is the product of Mitchell’s imagination or was in Black’s script, but it is vastly superior to what director Richard Donner actually filmed. For one, the sniper is even worse here in the novel; we learn he’s killed a few kids, and also he’s wearing a gas mask to protect himself from the inevitable tear gas the cops will shoot at him. And when Riggs goes into action, he doesn’t just blindly walk into the fray as Mel Gibson does in the cut scene; instead, he relies on the fact that the gas mask will obstruct the sniper’s view, and his “Hello, Mr. Sniper” dialog is intended to distract the killer rather than to just taunt him as in the film. Also, Riggs here sees first-hand the shot kid the disinterested cop told him about, and the child is indeed dead, but Riggs manages to save another young kid who is hiding on the playground. Here we even get a reference to Miami Vice, which I wonder if was in Black’s script…surely he must’ve realized the similarities between his screenplay and the hit TV show. 

The first quarter of the novel is where all the major differences are. Mitchell proves himself just as good at bringing to life the much less danger-prone Murtaugh; indeed Mitchell seems to identify with Murtaugh more, and if I’m not mistaken the sequences from Murtaugh’s perspective slightly outnumber those from Riggs’s. As mentioned Murtaugh is terrified something bad will befall his family, and Mitchell does a phenomenal job of weaving this element throughout the story via random, incidental details – like later in the book when Murtaugh’s hotstuff, 17 year-old daughter Rianne is necking (as they once called it) in a car with her boyfriend, and we’re informed the car doors are locked because Murtaugh drilled this into Rianne from an early age. What I mean to say is Mithcell skillfully develops the disparity between his two protagonists in ways that Black was unable to in his script – I mean a script isn’t going to tell you incidental background stuff like a novel can. 

I ended up enjoying the first quarter of Lethal Weapon most of all, with the two protagonists separate. Around page 70 however they are teamed up, and the story begins to more resemble the film. One thing I noticed in the novel is that it follows more of a procedural vibe than the movie; as mentioned, Mitchell was a cop, and thus peppers in just enough real-world details of a crime investigation to lend the tale the right amount of versimilitude. And the plot is the same as the film; a call-girl – the daughter of a guy Murtaugh knew in ‘Nam – has jumped to her death from a high-rise, only it turns out she’d really been poisoned, and in investigating the murder Murtaugh and Riggs will discover a plot that ultimately takes in a global drug operation run by former ‘Nam badasses. 

One thing missing here in the novel is the age difference that was really played up in the film. In the novel, both Riggs and Murtaugh are ‘Nam vets; Murtaugh is older, as the novel opens on his fiftieth birthday, but Riggs can’t be much younger. He too fought in ‘Nam, and we’re told he was married for 11 years. Also, Murtaugh was still in the shit in the late ‘60s, so it’s not like he was fighting in ‘Nam in the earliest years of the conflict. The novel also makes it clear that Murtaugh was a Green Beret in ‘Nam, so in a way he’s just as much an ass-kicker as LRRP guy Riggs. But it’s the age difference that’s not much a factor here; indeed, Murtaugh’s famous “I’m too old for this shit!” line does not appear in Mitchell’s Lethal Weapon novelization, implying that it’s something that was come up with during production. 

Curiously I found my interest waning as the action increased. This surprised me, as I’m an action junkie. But I really did enjoy the first half of Lethal Weapon more, with Riggs and Murtaugh engaged in their separate lives before becoming embroiled in an investigation together. But due to the demands of the action genre things pick up, same as in the film, with frequent explosions and gunfights. One thing Mitchell makes more clear in his novelization is that Riggs finds his meaning with this case; when the villains start going after Murtaugh’s family, Riggs takes on a new drive, telling Murtaugh’s wife that there’s “no one better at making war” than himself. Oh another thing not in the novelization is the spelling out of the title phrase; it’s been many years since I saw Lethal Weapon, but I seem to recall it was stated that Riggs himself was registered as a lethal weapon or somesuch. Here in the novelization, this phrase only appears in a sequence from Murtaugh’s perspective, when he realizes that Martin Riggs is exactly what he needs: a “lethal weapon” who will take on the bad guys who have kidnapped Murtaugh’s teenaged daughter. 

Oh and speaking of teenaged, there’s another bit here in the novel that’s about as unacceptable in today’s world as the race to Vegas. When meeting Murtaugh’s family, Riggs is momentarily taken aback by teen daughter Rianne’s beauty – and body. There’s even a part where he sneaks a look at her shapely rear while Murtaugh is otherwise distracted. Riggs later realizes that this is the first time he’s felt any “sexual urges” since his wife’s death…and nowhere is it belabored that he’s felt these urges due to the sight of an underaged girl. At any rate, this leads to yet another sequence that was not in the film; Riggs picks up a streetwalker and takes her back to his place…and pops some popcorn so they can watch old movies all night on TV. This part was wisely cut, and also it reminded me of Pretty Woman…of course Pretty Woman came out later, but still. 

The villains are more military here in the novel; led by a never-named “General,” the group includes in its ranks Joshua, as memorably played by Gary Busey in the film (who would reunite with Danny Glover a few years later in the underappreciated Predator 2). Joshua in the novel is more creepy than Busey’s portrayal, and also he’s as close to being albino as you can get without being Edgar Winters. He’s the lead heavy in the novel, same as the film, and as the novel progresses it becomes more like the movie, only with minor variations – like when Riggs is captured and tortured, here in the novel Riggs is strapped up in a bathtub, not hanging from a girder or whatever it was in the film. But while the action scenes are similar, they are just better played out here in the novel. Most notable is the bit where Riggs, with a long-range gun, raises hell when the General’s goons try to exchange Murtaugh for Rianne. Mitchell develops this sequence a helluva lot better than the film does, and this extends to the emotional content. Whereas Murtaugh just lamely yells “Everything’s gonna be all right” to his daughter before the shooting starts in the movie, here in the novel Mitchell really brings home how terrified a father would be in such a situation: 

The finale is especially different and an indication of how much change the script went through in production – and how much society has changed as well. Believe it or not, but Mitchell’s novel – and presumably Shane Black’s original script – ends with the Murtaugh family and Riggs going to church on Chrismas day. With Murtaugh introducing Riggs to the congregation and the preacher grumbling that Riggs hasn’t been there for a long time. Not only is it a lame way to end the story, but it’s also an indication of how much things have changed…I mean imagine a Hollywood action film ending with the heroes going to church. I guess even in ’87 this would’ve seemed odd, and it would seem positively bizarre today. But then in a way I appreciated it for this very reason. I’m not a religious man by any means, but it seems clear to me that western society has sort of lost its way with the abandonment of Christianity – I still recall my mind being blown last year when I was into all that Space Race stuff and saw how the astronauts would pray during their missions and whatnot. Imagine such a thing happening today! They’d probably get sued for mixing religion with “the science.” 

Well anyway, I really did enjoy Lethal Weapon. It joins the ranks of Hickey & Boggs and Invasion U.S.A. as a novelization that’s better than the film it’s based on. Mitchell’s writing is strong throughout, and I look forward to reading another of his novelizations I have, for the Chuck Norris vehicle Delta Force (which I saw in a jam-packed theater when it was released in 1985 – and the audience enjoyed the hell out of it in a totally non-ironic way).