Always thought I was the only one… 
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Maybe it is unrealistic, but i’d guess that if Miller made another Mad Max with Gibson it would still attract a big audience, rather than put them off. I think there’s an argument for people loving some characters so much that it can eclipse the actor’s personal issues, so long as they material and performance stand up.
Personally i’d leave the real life baggage at the door and enjoy the movie in its own right. I think many would do the same if the movie itself had good word of mouth. His 2018 movie Dragged Across Concrete had good reviews and so i watched it and really enjoyed it’s uber dark portrait of police and criminals with all the dividing lines rubbed out.
Bad Boys 3 (which dropped a dose of reality onto what had been brainless popcorn) was the last movie in 2020 to do incredible box office, so, the Mel Gibson issue aside, it’s not unprecedented. Though of course, in that instance, having two black leads would change the way racial prejudice in the police is approached by its lead characters.
This has been a really interesting look at the portrayal of cops in movies. I’d like to take a moment to pay tribute to the best police officers on film:
Truly the heroes the world needs right now.
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Oh, I totally forgot about “Bad Boys”. Although they, too, are an example for “ain’t those law-bending cops funny?”
Haven’t seen part 3, so maybe they remedied a lot in that.
Still, the main issue, for me and for writers´ rooms for any cop show right now, is: how will one depict the police in fictional narratives after decades of glorification of violence and law-breaking?
By the way, here is the contrast to 007: he is not a police officer but a secret agent licensed to kill, always encouraged to work outside the rule of law.
And since he so clearly is a character which could not exist in real life, he can be entertainingly outrageous.
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They very much were in the first 2, the third one then makes a point of displaying the consequences of that kind of thinking. It was oddly prescient of what was just about to happen.
“Sorry rich white people!”
“We’re not just black, we’re cops too, we’ll pull ourselves over later”
1:40 for context. Oddly the thumbnail is from EXACTLY that exchange.
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So…the good cops are all Brits?
…and were in Spaced
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Additionally, the George Floyd and other videos will be in viewers’ minds as reference points for actual police practice as they watch police shows/movies (amazingly, even with the the strong likelihood of being filmed, the police keep acting as if nobody is recording them, adding to the archive). Even new shows/movie that present the police as acting within the law and not being racist/violent will be subject to the criticism of sanitizing reality.
This does actually raise an ineresting question about the different portrayal of the police by American and British media. While crime drams are common in British cinemas they tend to focus more on the criminals rather than the police. The ‘cop movie’ never really took off. Even Hot Fuzz exists as a satire of American cop movies.
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One reason perhaps being that British police comes from a different angle towards entertainment. Cop shows and films in the US have evolved to some extent from the western - good vs. bad and a showdown blazing in glory - while British coppers are more concerned with whodunnit, lacking guns and frontier myths.
Of course there have been popular cop shows aplenty on British tv, Morse, The Sweeny, Midsomer Murders, Prime Suspect andandand. But they very rarely set out to follow the cowboy/Indians template - and when they do they definitely stick out like The Professionals. The big screen seldom tries to out-Hollywood the US at its own game.
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I adore your point, but I was being glib.
There was also the notion that law enforcement (white hats) were a necessary part of civilizing frontier wildness–whether that wildness was a physical wilderness or the indigenous people who inhabited it. In American mythology, the police are the vital keepers of law-and-order without whom chaos would rule due to the intrinsic wildness of some cohorts of society–think of how Black males are portrayed as highly sexual and presenting a threat to white, i.e., civilized, womanhood (which is why one rarely sees a Black male lead with a white female love interest in movies/television). The settling of Europe having occurred so long ago, it makes sense that the police would be regarded differently. Also, how much policing is done across ethnic/racial lines? Are ethnic/racial minorities in Europe seen as disruptive/uncivilized forces who need to be kept in check?
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Unfortunately, sometimes they are. Although cop shows make an effort to strengthen diversity. Not always out of being convinced that it is right, often because it is considered problematic not to do it (careers do depend on what hierarchies think about PC).
This discussion started out from the Lethal Weapon franchise and its potential for a restart in light of recent developments. We branched out to more general questions of how and why entertainment embraced a glorification of violence and vigilante justice. And if this can actually be the basis for a revived franchise in a day and age where people are frequently killed by police forces for very little else than their looks.
I cannot judge the Lethal Weapon films simply because I haven’t seen them. But as part of the popcorn action entertainment I think it’s fair to say the genre as a whole is not exactly given to a faithful depiction of reality and has a certain tendency to present solutions in terms of calibre, velocity and magazine capacity. Glorification of violence may not be to our liking but it’s difficult to argue such fare caters to our fondness for the bigger bang.
But whatever the verdict on Lethal Weapon, must we not hold court over Bond and his very similar antics too?
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Exactly.
I do find the idea of criticizing Lethal Weapon on a James Bond site to be rather odd. Does Lethal Weapon have to make some adjustments in light of where we are today versus where we were the last time we saw Murtaugh and Riggs? Yes, absolutely. Is there a way to do that? Yes, I think that there is, and I’d actually argue that there’s more of a chance for Lethal Weapon to make the adjustment and make a meaningful statement about the state of today’s culture than Bond could ever hope to make.
The Lethal Weapon films have highlighted some of the behavior that is now being reckoned with in society. It’s past time for that to have happened, but it also does present the franchise with an opportunity to address it. With the two main characters being police officers who have themselves operated outside of the bounds of the law on numerous occasions, there stands an opportunity to craft a storyline where those past actions can come back to them in some meaningful way. Maybe the situation occurring today makes one or both of them see the error of their ways and the story is, on some level, about that change. Or maybe the villain of the piece is himself a cop who acts much in the same way that Riggs and Murtaugh have in their previous four outings and they see that “quality” in themselves and it leads to some soul searching. There are many ways that the story could go and address the issue and give the characters the chance for some growth while still keeping the thrills and excitement that the films have become known for. And, whatever the direction they decide to take it in, they have two incredibly gifted actors in Glover and Gibson who will be able to pull it off exceptionally well.
But to dismiss the films based on this while giving Bond a free pass is, at best, misguided. Bond isn’t all that different from Lethal Weapon. He operates outside of the law (and, I’m sorry, the “license to kill” doesn’t make his actions legal), kills far more people per film than Riggs and Murtaugh are responsible for, and has had more than his fair share of moments of, to put it mildly, racial insensitivity.
All police procedurals are going to have to change in light of recent events. That’s a good thing. In fact, I welcome there being far fewer of them on TV (and in whatever will count for the cinematic experience moving forward), as less room spent on the shedules for them means there’s room for more original programming. But, let’s not kid ourselves while we rightfully rake some of these forms of entertainment over the coals for their portrayal of violence and behavior that demonstrates institutionalized forms of discrimination and unnecessary violence. Bond has been guilty of some of those things in the past and, especially in terms of the glorification of violence, still very much leads the way in terms of being on the wrong end of things.
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Glorification of violence in Bond films? Absolutely.
In fact, every action thriller glorifies it by showing the hero killing the bad guys without due process, and the audience is pumped to cheer him on.
But the main and important difference is: Bond, apart from being a total fantasy figure, is a Secret Agent with the license to kill. He is not bound by laws, he is sent to operate outside of the law.
“Lethal Weapon” depicts two police officers bound by laws, choosing to disregard them, and the audience is thrilled to watch them because, in the end, the heroes are always right.
Now, again, I love the LW-movies, simply because they are well-made action thrillers with two exciting leads. But I don’t think I would enjoy them if they were released today. Nor would I enjoy another sequel having them behave the same way now.
Can a sequel address the problems discussed? It could. But again, the LW-movies always flirted (at least one film too much) that the Glover-character was on the verge of retiring. With more than 20 years since the last one even the Gibson-character would now be out of duty. So, one would have to drag them back in from retirement - and that cannot be done in a believable way. Also, the LW-movies depend on break-neck-action. How believable would that be with those guys?
I think it´s better to leave it where it was and craft a new action thriller about police behavior.
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But this is the whole point I was trying to make. Just because he’s sanctioned by the British government to kill whoever he pleases, it doesn’t in the slightest bit make it legal. That argument might (and I stress might) hold water if Bond operated solely within the United Kingdom, but he doesn’t. The British government can’t just confer you immunity from doing whatever you want outside of their borders and expect every nation to just go along with it. It’s that kind of attitude that makes Bond very much like the bad cops that we’re discussing here. He can just go where he wants and do whatever he pleases with no consequence, regardless of how wrong his actions are, and expect that the higher ups back at HQ will keep him from facing whatever consequences would normally come from them if he were just your average Joe Q public.
If anything, he’s just a global version of a police officer, albeit one who tends to operate in more high class settings than your typical beat cop. He’s also, since Licence to Kill gone rogue more than anyone would care to see in the films, meaning that he’s been operating even outside of the very loose definition of the law that many claim him to be protected by.
The idea that he is a fantasy figure also makes it a bit more problematic as well. It glorifies the behavior even more than it would if he were a more realistic figure, making the lifestyle and actions appear to be glamorous even when they are not. There’s also the more realistic bent that these new films have been taking that somewhat blur the line between his being a fantasy figure and the rest of the world, which is also problematic.
And all of this just pertains to the extrajudicial killing that Bond engages in on a rather absurd level. I’ll be interested to see how EON adjusts the films with Bond #7 to meet this new moment in time whenever we get the next film. But they have a lot of work to do in other departments as well, namely the treatment of women. Both Skyfall and Spectre have featured two of the worst moments in the franchise in terms of the treatment of women that this franchise has seen, which is rather shocking considering how poorly women were treated in the beginning of the franchise. With all of these problems that Bond has, I just personally find it rather absurd to be criticizing (whether rightly or wrongly, and in the case of Lethal Weapon, most of it is quite deserved to be sure) other franchises for things that Bond is not only guilty of as well, but does so in much more abundance.
Long story short, in light of where are today, EON has to take a long, hard look at where they are taking these films in the future.
They surely have to think about how to move on after CraigBond.
But for me, no matter how pseudo-realistic CraigBond was meant to be, James Bond 007 is so removed from reality that I do not hold him to the same standard as any cop figure.
Just as I would never consider Sherlock Holmes to be a realistic private investigator, Bond is a secret agent no secret agent ever would take seriously. That’s why the glorification of his violent behavior is less problematic for me. One could still argue that any kind of glorification of violence should be condemned - but we don’t live in that kind of society. Also, I believe there is a fine line between encouragement of violence and depiction of a fantasy hero employing violence.
I always loved Bond, by the way, for never being the aggressor, for never being the first one to strike someone. He always reacts to violence and does not enjoy it. Even as an 8-year-old encountering the world of Bond for the first time I always felt that he is the good guy simply because he was only punching or shooting at someone because his life or that of innocent others were in danger. Bond truly is the knight in shining armor, and this still applies to CraigBond, I believe. Is he shown as more ruthless, more cold blooded than MooreBond? Definitely. But he clearly suffers from the violence inflicted on him and by him. So that aspect already takes away from the glorification. I certainly would not want to be Bond. But I enjoy watching him prevail against the bad guys to save the world.
As for the women in SKYFALL and SPECTRE - I respectfully disagree (I guess you refer to Severine and Lucia). But that’s another discussion, and I certainly see what you mean.
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One thought on LW that I didn’t see while skimming through the posts is the television series on Fox. The first two seasons were pretty good, getting decent critical reviews and made the studio some money, before the toxic environment of its lead actors, Clayne Crawford and Daman Wayans, made production difficult to continue (Crawford was then fired.) But it showed the characters could exist in 2017-18. There was also more development into Riggs’ family life (father and brother) and Murtagh’s wife, as well as other side characters. Their updated Leo Getz was entertaining as well.
So I think the movie producers felt there was an appetite, if not an audience, for another Lethal Weapon movie.
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