Review of Lethal Weapon 2: Director`s Cut

Introduction

When the Director`s cuts of the first three Lethal Weapon films were announced, I paid little attention. After all, the added scenes advertised were all available as deleted scenes on Lethal Weapon 4. Otherwise the discs were identical in content. However, on the day of release, I was able to take a look at the cases and saw something that piqued my interest, the words Dual Layer. The original films were released as single layer single sided discs. Tempted by the promise of better picture quality and three trade-ins later, here is what I found.

The characters of Riggs and Murtaugh return in the first sequel in the Lethal Weapon series. In the most anachronistic of the series, our heroes are up against some evil Apartheid-era South African drug smugglers. Hiding under diplomatic immunity Arjen Ruud and his cronies are smuggling billions of dollars of drugs under the noses of the LAPD. When Riggs and Murtaugh get too close to the bad guys, the South Africans get personal and declare war on the police. There are even more thrills and excitement in this no holds barred sequel. Added into the mix this time round is the character of Leo Getz, a state witness against the smugglers who tags along for the ride and is hell bent on irritating Riggs and Murtaugh even more than they irritate each-other.

Video

The picture quality is substantially improved again over the previous release. Grain is completely absent and the picture is clear and well defined. The transfer is anamorphic 2.35:1 and well accomplished, an improvement on the previous disc.

Audio

Audio is DD5.1 as before and identical to the previous release. Michael Kamen and Eric Clapton again provide the soundtrack. The music complements the story and action well. When the stilt house is destroyed, you can really feel your speakers at work.

Features

Identical to the first disc, extras are in the form of a Stunts and Action Featurette, a three-minute documentary on the accomplishment of a single stunt in the film. The menus are spruced up, this time with a cute gun motif. You also get a static cast list.

Conclusion

Mel Gibson and Danny Glover expand their characters more in this sequel and the script is just as fresh and thrilling. All the other characters also return to provide moments of light relief. The main bad-guy this time round is played by Joss Ackland, the South African Consul/Drug Baron. At the time the South Africans were the world`s nemesis, yet now the story seems quaint, almost apocryphal. A fresh addition is Joe Pesci as Leo Getz. He injects a note of humour as an unscrupulous money launderer, hoist on his own petard when the drug smugglers cottoned on. He plays well off the two main characters. Patsy Kensit supplies the love interest. Best be tactful. O.K, I liked Patsy Kensit in the Fairy detergent adverts and she was passable as the lead singer of Eighth Wonder. `Nuff said.

There are three minutes of material restored to this film and as in the first film, and it is mostly window dressing and character development. I like the extra scene with Leo Getz trying to find the stilt house. The first film was advertised with "No scenes have been removed. But new action and new insight are now included". This phrase is conspicuously absent on the packaging of the sequel. It becomes jarringly apparent in the denouement of the film that the censors in their blindness have attacked with their knives. In every release up to now, albeit VHS or DVD, there is a scene where Riggs pumps a bad guy full of bullets, yelling the names of every policeman killed in the course of this movie. This has been brutally and clumsily hacked from this release. The action just jumps from one frame to the next, with Riggs covering 20 feet in the 2 frames. The sound also jumps with the cut. This is criminal editing on the part of the censors and with prior precedent established in previous releases, completely unnecessary. I thus have to mark it down for content.

This is a case where a sequel is as good as the original feature. The humour, action and thrills of the first film are there with the relationship between Riggs and Murtaugh enjoyable and incendiary as ever. The added scenes are not detrimental to the film, nor are they fundamental to the plot. They are charming pieces of exposition, however. What stops me from marking this similarly to the first movie is that clumsy and jarring butchery of the film`s conclusion. It`s totally disgusting and uncalled for. Whether I prefer this to the original DVD or not, I have to say that the improved picture quality swings it. I wonder if there will be yet another release of this disc though.

NB: I contacted the BBFC about this clumsy excision and their response was :

"The distributor pre-cut their submission of the Director`s Cut to attempt to bring it into line with the edits made to the previous VHS releases. However, this particular cut was made differently to the one in the original video version, leading to a clumsy jump cut. However, this was the company`s mistake at the editing stage, rather than the result of any specific BBFC request. We would have no objection to the VHS version of that scene appearing on DVD should they submit it to us."

So you know whom to blame.