LETHAL WEAPON: Pictured L-R: Johnathan Fernandez, Clayne Crawford and Damon Wayans ©2016 Fox Broadcasting Co. CR: Richard Foreman/FOX
A bereaved, suicidal Texas cop is transferred to Los Angeles and partnered with a fifty-year old veteran homicide cop. Chaos ensues. Welcome to the television reboot of Lethal Weapon (FOX, Wednesdays, 8/7C).
Clayne Crawford plays Martin Riggs, the Texas cop and Damon Wayans plays Roger Murtaugh, the LA vet. In support, Kevin Rahm plays their boss, Avery Brooks; Keesha Sharp is Murtaugh’s wife, Trish, and Jordana Brewster is the department’s shrink, Maureen Cahill.
The biggest change for the TV version of hit movie franchise is that there is more emphasis on family. Riggs’ wife was pregnant when she died, so he loses a family and not just his wife. This gives the character an underlying melancholy that carries on after he begins to come out of his depression.
LETHAL WEAPON: Clayne Crawford ©2016 Fox Broadcasting Co. CR: Richard Foreman/FOX
When Riggs gets himself invited to dinner at the Murtaugh home, there’s far more of the feeling that he’s found a surrogate family than in the movie. Crawford gets that – and Riggs’ underlying vulnerability – so well that he brings something genuinely new to the character.
Murtaugh, on the other hand, returning to work after recovering from heart surgery, says he wants to just take it easy until his looming retirement but there’s a glee to his participating in the show’s action sequences that totally undermines that sentiment. Naturally, Wayans plays that like a virtuoso.
LETHAL WEAPON: Pictured L-R: Clayne Crawford, Keesha Sharp, Chandler Kinney, Dante Brown and Damon Wayans ©2016 Fox Broadcasting Co. CR: Richard Foreman/FOX
The most important action beats from the movie are replicated – Riggs’ tackling of the bank robbery in progress, Murtaugh coming to Riggs’ aid in spectacular fashion – well, but feel new because of the new shading given the characters by Crawford and Wayans (sometimes people, myself included, forget just how good an actor Damon Wayans is; anyone who’s watched Rectify will be aware of Crawford’s skills).
Based on the movie that starred Mel Gibson and Danny Glover, the Lethal Weapon pilot should have had three strikes against before it ever reached the network’s programming heads. Instead, it takes the story from the first movie and hits most of the same beats with enough twists and wit that it really works – with a similar manic energy balanced by some cool dramatic moments.
Color me surprised.
Grade: A-