10 Huge Movie Moments That Didn't Matter At All
7. Riggs' Fake Death Means Nothing - Lethal Weapon (1987)
Investigating retired General McAllister and his ‘Shadow Company’, a band of former special ops soldiers that now run heroin into the US, LAPD detectives Martin Riggs and Roger Murtaugh are targeted by McAllister’s men.
McAllister needs to know what Murtaugh knows, and kidnaps his daughter to force his cooperation. Riggs, however, is surplus to requirements: McAllister orders him killed, not realising that Riggs is wearing a kevlar vest and has survived the assassination.
That bug-eyed grin etched on his face, the Lethal Weapon of the title cheerfully tells his partner that they have the upper hand: McAllister thinks he’s dead.
As we turn the corner into act three and the dramatic confrontation in the desert, this is our hook, the compelling twist in the narrative that we’re eager to see play out. Our two mismatched hero cops will use Riggs' supposed death to their advantage to take down the villain.
And then, less than ten minutes later, Riggs is easily located by the bad guys and both men are captured and tortured by the mercenaries. So much for the upper hand. What was the point in any of that? Why not just have McAllister capture them both to start with?