LEGAL WRECKIN'

LETHAL WEAPON (1987)
dir: Richard Donner

MAD #274, October 1987
w: Dick DeBartolo
a: Angelo Torres

The movie begins with Amanda Hunsaker (Jackie Swanson) having fallen from the Capitol building in Los Angeles, we don't know if it was a suicide or a drug overdose. Roger Murtaugh (Danny Glover), a police sergeant who has just had his fiftieth birthday, has been asked to investigate the case as a favor by her father Michael (Tom Atkins), a former military friend. Roger has just been partnered with Martin Riggs (Mel Gibson), an officer whose wife just died and he has psychotic and suicidal tendencies.

The parody skips all that and goes half an hour into the movie after the exposition establishing all this, their first meeting, and begins with their first case together, talking a man off the ledge of a building. Riggs goes up there onto the ledge.

Riggs cuffs himself to the man and jumps off the building himself. Murtaugh's line that he repeats throughout the movie is “I'm getting too old for this shit!” Amanda Hunsaker was a hooker and they investigate her case first by questioning her pimp in Beverly Hills. Murtaugh knows what a loose cannon Riggs is and insists on doing the talking himself. While they're there, Murtaugh doesn't the pimp coming with a gun and Riggs shoots him in time, but ends up drowning him in the swimming pool in the process.

Murtaugh has Riggs over for dinner, his teenage daughter (Traci Wolfe) has a crush on him. They practice at work their shots and Riggs shows how good he is by shooting a smiley face onto the target. They go to question Amanda's friend Dixie (MAD got the names wrong), but her house explodes before they can get to her.They ask some kids nearby if they saw anything and one kid says he saw someone with a tattoo just like Riggs'. This is a special tattoo only Riggs' unit in Vietnam had, so now they know there's more to it than just a hooker falling out a window. They go back to Mr. Hunsaker, who confesses she was a pawn in a drug ring he's part of, which he can't talk about or he'll be killed, which he then is before he can spill the bbeans.

They ask other hookers if they know anything, but the Vietnam vets who operate the drug ring are onto them, and shoot them, leaving Riggs for dead. They think they killed him but he had on a bullet proof vest. The vets have kidnapped Murtaugh's daughter, holding her hostage unless he gives up what their knows about the drug ring. Gen. McAllister (Mitchell Ryan) kidnaps and tortures Murtaugh, trying to get what he knows out of him. Riggs, who they think is dead, tries to assassinate them, but they find him too, and Mr. Joshua (Gary Busey) tries to get info out of him as well by electrocuting him.

Riggs escapes, unties Murtaugh, and they chase Mr. Joshua throughout the city. McAllister tries to drive away with the heroin as well. But is hit by a bus and his car catches fire. Joshua tries to attack Murtaugh's family at his home but is eluded by a police car use as a decoy with a brick on the gas pedal while Murtaugh and Riggs are waiting with their guns. Riggs is finally able to get over the death of his wife, supposedly, because there are three more films after this one.

ILL-LEGAL WEAPONS
Cracked #251, January 1990
w: Vic Bianco (Lou Silverstone)
a: Walter Brogan

Watching in the window are Clint Eastwood as his Dirty Harry character and Crazy Eddie. He was the spokesperson for a New York and New Jersey stereo chain that used the motto “our prices are insane”.