Monday, September 17, 2012

Lethal Weapon 5: Best movie you've never seen

Okay, there is only 1 full version of this film online in English, and they disabled the embedding option, so above is the trailer and here is the link to the full movie (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjhV1DavSRM). Lethal Weapon 5 was a movie made within the TV series "It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia." Though just over only 6 minutes long, this film is pure gold. It's filled with action, romance, character switching, black-face, awesome 80's-esque music, and even the use of slow-motion during the chase scene. Also, how can you not like a film that stars Danny Devito as the bad guy? Takes me back to when he played The Penguin in Batman.
Batman Returns - 1992

Dennis Reynolds: Raj / Rex *
Mac: Rex / Raj *
Charlie Kelly: captain, torturer, blonde casino assistant
Danny Devito: Indian casino owner
Dee Reynolds: taking out the trash

* denotes character switch halfway through film


The police station and Indian casino are shot in the same location (Paddy's Pub), but just with a different sign hanging over the front entrance. Genius.. saving money by not having to really build two different sets. Just hang a different sign and call it a day.

But what really makes this movie are the line deliveries from the characters. In the first scene, Charlie Kelly, the police captain, tells Dennis (Raj) that it was his wife that died. The sincerity in that line could kill me, he absolutely nailed it. The finger point, coupled with the killer line of "the person who just died was YOUR wife" is genius. I couldn't have said it better myself.

Next is where we get a complete dosage of Danny Devito. We can see how vicious he is as the Indian Casino owner when Rex and Raj confront him about the tainted tap water. Yet, we can see how gentle of a lover he is, as he lights candles and sets the mood for his Academy Award winning love scene to follow. Easily one of the best love scenes in a movie, ever.

The following scene is probably the most important of the entire film. We see Rex hung up by his arms being tortured, but he is not being played by Mac anymore. This is where Denis and Mac switch characters. Along with this switch, you will see that Rex has developed some sort of Australian accent, and Raj is now black. That is some twist that M. Night Shyamalan couldn't even come up with!

Danny Devito's amazing hood slide
 Upon finding where Raj was being held, Rex breaks in to save him and Devito makes a run for it. The chase seen takes them onto a roof, where someone has strangely enough, parked a car. However, it does make for the perfect, slow-motion hood slide for both of them.
In the end, Rex and Raj have Devito cornered and are able to douse him in his own tainted tap water, shocking him to death.



One of my favorite aspects of this movie are how underrated the catch-phrases are. Mac drops two pure gold lines during this film, the first being when he is asked if he has any last words. He responds with, "go suck an egg." Now, no one as ever told me to go suck an egg, but if they were to, I would feel completely defeated. What do you say back to that? Nothing.. you have no response.
His other food-based catch phrase was at the very end after Devito has been shocked, he cracks, "That's one fried turkey!" Maybe it was how he said it, or maybe it's because Devito is fat.. but either way, the line was perfect.

Sadly, this movie was never in theaters. Even worse, it didn't even have the chance to go straight to DVD. Given the chance, I would have been one of those people who lined up to see the midnight release of this thing. However, it never made it out of the 6 minute slot it was given in "It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia." It just kills it on so many different levels. The intentionally funny and unintentionally funny combination works incredibly well. All I can say is that there better be a Lethal Weapon 6. I want more character changes, more black face, more Devito, and more slow-motion!

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