Publication Date: 12-25-2025

Lethal Weapon 3 (1992) review

Dir. Richard Donner

By: Steve Pulaski

Rating: ★★★

Screenwriter Shane Black’s incredible handle on Lethal Weapon was the secret sauce to its success. He understood a rock-solid buddy pairing with character intrigue and development would be the primary aspect with which audiences would connect. The plot would take a backseat to the dynamic of Danny Glover’s Murtaugh and Mel Gibson’s Riggs, and the fun would be in the elaborate set-pieces moreso than the inner-machinations of whatever unsavory crime was needing to be solved.

Black has a story credit on Lethal Weapon 2, but only a “Characters by” credit on Lethal Weapon 3. I humbly feared the further the series got away from Black’s influence, the messier it would become.

Lethal Weapon 3 is the most slapdash installment of the series thus far. It has the benefit of Glover and Gibson’s rare, brotherly chemistry, so I highly doubt any sequel would be dreary or without merit, but this is the first time the plot felt like a complete and total muddle. A tornado of chaos that engulfs everything, whipping comic and dramatic debris around its characters while they manage mightily to remain upright.

This time around, Murtaugh is merely eight days out from retirement, much to the chagrin of Riggs, who knows that no other partner will tolerate a fraction of the amount of grief he’s put the veteran family-man through. The Big Bad is Jack Travis (Stuart Wilson), a former cop who is running a racket involving armor-piercing bullets, counterfeit guns, and other illegal weaponry. He’s no corrupt South African diplomat, that’s for sure.

While Joe Pesci returns as the motormouthed goofball Leo Getz, the best addition is Rene Russo, who plays Lorna Cole. She is a sergeant with Internal Affairs incredulous to the constant noise made by Riggs and Murtaugh, until she eventually has no choice but to partner up with them. At first, there’s reason to suspect that Lorna is a dirty cop in her own right, but the relationship she strikes up with Riggs is so nuanced and disarmingly sweet that it would be criminal if writers Jeffrey Boam and Robert Mark Kamen pulled the okedoke on us.

Lethal Weapon 3 retains its slick action thanks to the presence of Richard Donner, whose proclivity for special effects and large-scale chase sequences remains unmatched. However, the happenings feel less impactful because there’s not as much human interest in between. There’s precisely one great chase scene, which involved two armored trucks traveling the wrong way down the highway. The best bit of humanity between the characters, however, is a great one. It involves Riggs lamenting to Murtaugh that his best friend will be retiring from the force, and consequently taking with him a significant portion of his life. “I got three beautiful kids, I love em, and they’re yours!,” Riggs cries to Murtaugh, a beautiful line that prompted me to text my former radio co-host “Merry Christmas.” I played the “uncle” role with her young daughter for a year, and it was one of the most moving human experiences of my life.

Optimistically speaking, if Lethal Weapon 3 ends up being the weakest of the three, it will still be in the upper echelon of third installments in a series where the over/under on the number of great entries the concept could produce would probably sit at 1.5.

My review of Lethal Weapon
My review of Lethal Weapon 2
My review of Lethal Weapon 4

Starring: Danny Glover, Mel Gibson, Joe Pesci, Rene Russo, and Stuart Wilson. Directed by: Richard Donner.