What do Alan Parker‘s Angel Heart and Richard Donner‘s Lethal Weapon have in common, apart from having been released on the same day — 3.6.87? They both advanced what was then a radical new idea in movies — i.e., “the good guy did it.”
“Up until then Hollywood had always portrayed proverbial investigators of criminal activity (a private detective, a big-city detective) as more or less stable and law-abiding, or at least coming from a relatively neutral place when it came to anti-social instincts or behavior. Private detectives Sam Spade and Mickey Spillane had been portrayed as cynical, ethically ambivalent or even semi-sleazy fellows, but they were more or less on the right side of the law. Ditto cops with a badge.
“Then, all of a sudden and on the exact same day, two major Hollywood films said ‘no, not any more…the guy looking into criminal behavior may be just as ruthless or dangerous or hair-trigger violent as your traditional bad guy used to be…things are getting weird out there.'”