The original Lethal Weapon movie was playing on some channel or another the other day. Hadn’t seen it in quite a while so I watched a bit.
It dawned on me what a terrible scene this was vs real life.
First of all, drawing your duty weapon in a crowded police station and playing with it? HUGE no-no.
That in itself is going to earn no less than a 90 day, if not indefinite suspension pending termination hearings. But then when he flips Murtaugh over and points the weapon at an obvious police officer. Not only suspension and termination, but possible criminal charges.
Murtaugh isn’t off the hook. He sees an unknown subject with a firearm and what does he do? Instead of drawing his own weapon he charges from 20+ feet away and attempts to tackle armed Riggs. Who trained these clowns?
Afterwards the incident was just shrugged off. “Meet your new partner”. I cannot begin to tell you how much the shit would hit the fan over something like this.
Can’t believe I didn’t notice this the first time I saw the flick!
Thing is, most of the things that the police are portrayed to do in movies would never be done in real life like chase scenes that drive through windows and through stores, massive rolling gunfights where bullets are spraying everywhere among the civilian populace, etc. It makes for exciting movies but is utter nonsense when measured against reality.
Well, Riggs is a real burnout on the ragged edge, on loan from dope.
And Murtaugh is too old for this shit.
But seriously, of course policy will vary by department, but I was under the impression that nobody should be armed inside the secure area of a police station, which I would assume Roger’s office to be in.
In my experience, officers in police stations are not armed only in the area of the holding cells , which is not where any offices are. ( Jails and prisons are different)
Maybe the movie did not dwell on it, but Riggs was at the point of staring at a loaded gun in his hand every night trying to think of a good reason not to put it in his mouth and pull the trigger.
Yes, he really was suicidal, and not faking. So on the edge that he can’t tell a hollow point round from a solid round.
And then they went and ruined it in the second movie, making it that his wife was targeted instead of just a random accident. So he could TAKE! IT! PERSONAL!. Yawn. They did the same thing in the (not entirely bad) TV series.
I think the worst cop movie scene ever was at the end of the Jackie Chan film “The Spy Next Door” where at the end of the movie a terrorist pulls an M16 on four cops who already have their guns drawn and orders them to drop their guns and all the cops oblige.
Like the person wasn’t holding a hostage or anything and it’s four against one with everyone already have drawn, no way in hell the terrorist has ANY leverage and isn’t just immediately blown away.
Die Hard 2 should have ended when John McClane pulled that stunt with the assault rifle in the airport police precinct. He would either have been shot dead, or forced to fill in a load of paperwork to explain his actions.
The Lethal Weapon movies have nothing on the Beverly Hills Cop franchise when it comes to utterly ridiculous police scenarios.
In real life there never would’ve been sequels because the protagonists would’ve lost their jobs and probably been incarcerated.
It’s not a good idea to watch a police/detective movie with a real cop, just as it’s inadvisable to see a medical drama along with an actual physician.
That all falls on “the Chief,” who yells at the movie cop about how he’s a loose cannon and now the Mayor is all over his ass! But privately the Chief will admit that – God dammit – he gets results.
Spielberg got some criticism for editing out the guns of the FBI agents in ET but really it made more sense. As a kid I didn’t notice it but they were running around with their guns out when it didn’t make sense. Having them all holding radios is also weird. Anyway Han shot first.
I’m not sure. The Lethal Weapon movies were pretty bad. In the first one they sacrifice the lives of two cops to use as bait. At the end Mr Joshua is heading to the Murtugh residence to get revenge. They call ahead to get police protection. A police car is there in front of the house and Joshua murders both cops. He goes inside the house and finds a quippy note from our heroes. So they did get to the house before Joshua. Did they just watch while he murdered the two cops? Why didn’t they confront him then?
I can’t really embrace this semi-pitting because the whole premise is that Riggs is a loose-cannon with nothing to lose, but he’s also charismatic enough that he gets away with a lot of stuff.
Yes, it wouldn’t happen in real life, but if that’s enough basis for worst, then 99.9% of all cop movies are the worst.