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Lethal Weapon 4 (1998)

With personal crises and age weighing in on them, LAPD officers Riggs and Murtaugh must contend with a deadly Chinese crimelord trying to get his brother out of prison.

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Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
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Steve Kahan ...
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Hong, Chinese Refugee
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State Department Man
Calvin Jung ...
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Ebonie Smith ...
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Storyline

Martin Riggs and Roger Murtaugh, after escaping death from the previous movies are put on a hit list by The Triads. When blood thirsty mercenaries are on their tail they team up again with Leo Getz and Lorna Cole, a newcomer (Chris Rock) to finally put an end to the Triads for good. Written by Brian H <hershey@visuallink.com>

Plot Summary | Plot Synopsis

Taglines:

With 4 you get Kung Fu. See more »

Genres:

Action | Crime | Thriller

Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for violence and language | See all certifications »

Parents Guide:

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Details

Country:

Language:

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Release Date:

10 July 1998 (USA)  »

Also Known As:

Lethal 4  »

Box Office

Budget:

$140,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend:

$34,048,124 (USA) (10 July 1998)

Gross:

$129,734,803 (USA) (30 October 1998)
 »

Company Credits

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Technical Specs

Runtime:

Sound Mix:

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Color:

(Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1
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Did You Know?

Trivia

Jeffrey Boam, who worked on uncredited re-writes for Lethal Weapon (1987) where he added some more humor into the script after Richard Donner thought the original script was too dark, did a complete re-write of the script for Lethal Weapon 2 (1989) after the original draft by Shane Black and Warren Murphy was rejected for being too dark and bloody and because Riggs died at the end, and wrote the script for Lethal Weapon 3 (1992), wrote a completely original script for fourth Lethal Weapon movie which everyone at Warner Bros. had liked, but was not used. Boam's unused script was built around Riggs and Murtaugh dealing with racist white trash right wing neo-nazi survivalists militia group who were doing a terrorist attack in L.A. This script was written sometime in January of 1995 and according to Boam it dealt with entire real life neo-nazi activity in US that was only superficially dealt with in only one movie before, Dead Bang (1989). Interviewed after the release of Lethal Weapon 4, he remarked that he thought the counterfeiting of Chinese money was hardly a matter to create the suspense appropriate to a Lethal Weapon film and also said how his script was much better from the final movie which suffered some problems with constant re-writes and actually didn't have a completed script during filming. See more »

Goofs

In the scene from the prison in China, as the Chinese men are being loaded onto a Boeing 727, the pilot inputs LAX (Los Angeles Int'l Airport) as the destination from Peking (Beijing), China. This would be impossible to fly on a Boeing 727 without stopping to refuel several times, as the 727 has a maximum range of roughly 3,000 miles - not enough to fly non-stop from Beijing to L.A., which is roughly 6,300 miles apart. See more »

Quotes

[Looking at a corpse]
Butters: Ah, shit. He's dead, man. He's fuckin' dead, man. Yeah, this is how he wanted to come to America, right? Where was he, in The Killing Section? This guy's been shot 4 times. At close range, like he was executed.
Roger Murtaugh: He WAS executed.
Martin Riggs: Yeah, by the crew.
Butters: What the FUCK, man? We got people gettin' killed left, right and center in this town; now we're IMPORTING victims? Hey, gangbangers wanna kill each other? No problem. You or me, one of us gets shot? Hey, occupational hazard. But ...
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Crazy Credits

A picture accompanies almost every crew and cast member in a large photo album. It includes pictures from all 4 Lethal Weapon movies with outtakes and posed pictures. It closes on a large group shot of the crew, with a back cover with a red "4" on it. See more »

Connections

References Godzilla (1998) See more »

Soundtracks

Fire in the Hole
Written by Van Halen
Produced by Mike Post and Edward Van Halen (as Eddie Van Halen)
Performed by Van Halen
Courtesy of Warner Bros. Records Inc.
By Arrangement with Warner Special Products
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Frequently Asked Questions

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User Reviews

The Magic Was Still There
23 May 2002 | by (England) – See all my reviews

It is extremely rare for the fourth film in a series to be just as good as it's three predecessors. Lethal Weapon 4 was awesome.

Mel Gibson and Danny Glover had no trouble recreating the magic from the first three films. The humour was there, the action was there and the chemistry between them was there. Joe Pesci was back as Leo Getz.

Lethal Weapon 3 was released in 1992, Lethal Weapon 4 was released in 1998. Six years had passed yet none of the actors or production staff involved in Lethal Weapon 4 had any problem in making a great movie.

The action throughout is brilliant (are real American policemen as mad as Riggs and Murtaugh?). And of course the humour is there; particularly the beginning of the movie where Murtaugh (Danny Glover) strips down to his underwear in the rain and acts like a chicken in order to distract the bad guy. There are other humorous scenes throughout and a great plot too.

Roll on Lethal Weapon 5.


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