Cast and Characters (Lethal Weapon) Lethal Weapon (1987)
Principal Cast
| Actor | Role |
|---|---|
| Mel Gibson | Sgt. Martin Riggs |
| Danny Glover | Sgt. Roger Murtaugh |
| Gary Busey | Mr. Joshua |
| Mitchell Ryan | Gen. Peter McAllister |
| Tom Atkins | Michael Hunsaker |
| Darlene Love | Trish Murtaugh |
| Traci Wolfe | Rianne Murtaugh |
| Jackie Swanson | Amanda Hunsaker |
| Steve Kahan | Capt. Ed Murphy |
| Ebonie Smith | Carrie Murtaugh |
| Damon Hines | Nick Murtaugh |
| Al Leong | Endo |
Mel Gibson as Martin Riggs
Riggs is an ex-Special-Forces narcotics detective whose wife Victoria Lynn was killed in a car accident the previous year. The dossier the Captain hands Murtaugh in beat 8 calls him a "lethal weapon" — psychiatric flag, suicidal, recently transferred out of narcotics, kept on the job because firing him would put the gun in his mouth instead of in someone else's. Gibson plays Riggs with two registers — a comic charm in public, a hollowness in private — and the film is structured around the gap.b4 b13
Gibson was thirty when he shot the role. Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985) had been a step down commercially from The Road Warrior (1981); Mrs. Soffel (1984) and The River (1984) were respected but small. Lethal Weapon is the film that converted him into a Hollywood A-list lead. The mullet — Gibson's idea, against the studio's preferences — became one of the most-imitated hairstyles in late-80s cinema. See Mel Gibson (Lethal Weapon) and Mel Gibson's 1987 Star Persona.
Danny Glover as Roger Murtaugh
Murtaugh is a forty-year-old Robbery-Homicide veteran played at fifty — Glover was forty when he shot the film, his hair temple-grayed by makeup, his carriage thickened. The film's structural innovation is that Murtaugh is not the protagonist's foil but the protagonist's destination. Riggs's arc moves toward the breakfast Murtaugh eats with his family in beat 2; the climax is staged on Murtaugh's lawn; the wind-down is at Murtaugh's door. Glover's job is to be stable across the film while Riggs converts. The "I'm too old for this shit" tag is character comedy that doubles as the witness-partner's only available form of protest. See Danny Glover (Lethal Weapon).
Gary Busey as Mr. Joshua
Joshua is McAllister's enforcer, an ex-Special-Forces mercenary whose introductory scene has him holding his bare arm into a butane lighter flame at McAllister's request without flinching.b10 The film is explicit that Joshua is what Riggs would have become without the wife and the LAPD — both men calibrate their lethality by self-mortification, both are veterans of the same war, both are perfectly trained. Busey, two years past The Buddy Holly Story (1978) and three years past the dirt-bike crash that nearly killed him, played Joshua with a peroxide-blond stillness that the film cuts to as a structural rhyme with Riggs. See Gary Busey and Joshua and Riggs as Doppelgangers.
Mitchell Ryan as General Peter McAllister
The retired Special-Forces general who runs Shadow Company's stateside heroin operation. Ryan plays McAllister as a poolside CEO — silver-haired, white-shirted, tropical — whose violence is delegated. He dies in beat 32 when Murtaugh shoots him through a windshield and his car flips with grenades inside.b32 Ryan was a working character actor of three decades when Lethal Weapon cast him; he is best remembered now for the role and for Dharma & Greg, where he later played Greg's father. See Mitchell Ryan.
Tom Atkins as Michael Hunsaker
Hunsaker is the Vietnam buddy whose phone call sets the case in motion in beat 3 and whose midpoint reveal — Air America, Shadow Company, Laos — is the structural pivot of the film.b21 Atkins, then a fifty-two-year-old genre lead known for The Fog (1980), Escape from New York (1981), Halloween III (1982), and Maniac Cop (1988), is the ringer of the cast — the audience that recognizes him recognizes the kind of veteran-with-a-secret part he is being asked to play. He is shot dead mid-sentence in his only major scene with Murtaugh. See Tom Atkins.
The Murtaugh family is the structural stake
Darlene Love plays Trish Murtaugh, the wife — the wife, the standing one, the un-killed one in a film where Riggs's wife is dead before the film begins. Love is the singer (Phil Spector's Wall of Sound, He's a Rebel, Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)); the Christmas-record voice is part of why the role lands. Traci Wolfe plays Rianne, the eldest daughter, who flirts with Riggs at the dinner table in beat 16 and is kidnapped by Joshua's team in beat 27.b16 b27 Ebonie Smith plays Carrie, Damon Hines plays Nick. The family is the home base the film's arc moves toward and the location where the climax is staged. See The Murtaugh Family as Stakes.
The supporting bench
Steve Kahan plays Capt. Ed Murphy, the watch commander who hands Murtaugh the dossier in beat 8 — Kahan was Richard Donner's cousin and would appear in every Lethal Weapon sequel. Jackie Swanson plays Amanda Hunsaker in the wordless cold open. Al Leong plays Endo, the torture specialist — Leong became one of the most-recognized stunt-fight faces of late-80s American action (Die Hard, Big Trouble in Little China, Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure). Jack Thibeau, Ed O'Ross, and Grand L. Bush fill out the Shadow Company unit.