Goofs

• Continuity: While seated on the toilet, Murtaugh is wearing an explosion-proof jacket that disappears briefly while he is getting instructions from the bomb squad leader.
• Continuity: The right headlight of Murtaugh's car when it is chasing the BMW.
• Continuity: On the Alba Varden, Riggs empties a full clip into a crewmember, calling out the names of police officers who've died. A bullet wound appears on the chest of the crewman for each name but with his final shot, delivered at point blank range, the crewman's chest is clean.
• Continuity: Riggs has a cold when he and Murtaugh go to guard Leo at the hotel, yet he was perfectly healthy just moments before.
• Continuity: When Riggs and Murtaugh go to guard Leo at the hotel, they walk through the pool area of the hotel and a woman in a pink bikini gets out of the pool. In the next shot, which is a close-up, she gets out of the water again, as Riggs walks past.
• Revealing mistakes: When the surfboard is flying through the windshield of the tow-truck, you can see a black dropcloth in the driver's window, which is there to hide the fact that there is no driver.
• Revealing mistakes: After the station wagon "scrapes" on the railing, there is no damage to the paint, but there is black ash all the lower edge of it from the flash powder used to make the sparks.
• Continuity: The paint damage to the driver's side of the station wagon from the railing doesn't appear until near the end of the car chase.
• Crew or equipment visible: The camera is reflected in the window of Riggs' truck when he drives off after blocking in the car of the South African diplomat.
• Continuity: During the tow truck chase, the same shot of a beige Cadillac swerving around the truck as it approaches a Chevrolet Citation is used twice, although from different angles.

Taglines

• The magic is back!
• Je conduis. Non, je conduis. [canada]

Trivias

• While the Murtaugh family waits for the commercial, they watch "Tales from the Crypt" (1989), specifically episode #1.2, "And All Through The House" (the psycho Santa episode), which aired on 10 June 1989, starring Mary Ellen Trainor, who plays police psychiatrist Dr. Stephanie Woods in this movie. Some episodes in the series were produced by the film's director, Richard Donner.
• The carpenter is named McGee. This is the actual surname of the actor portraying him ('Jack McGee' (I) ).
• The bottle of cologne that is shot during the destruction of Riggs' trailer is "Hero." The first time we see Riggs going into his trailer, there is an ad for that same cologne on TV.
• In the scene in which Leo is cleaning Martin Riggs' house, you can hear the song "I'm Not Scared", by the short-lived British pop group Eighth Wonder, of which Patsy Kensit was the lead singer.
• Leo's "okay-okay-okay" schtick was based on Disneyland employees giving directions to Fantasyland. Originally, Leo was going to be an oily, effeminate character, but Joe Pesci didn't want to play him that way. He pitched the idea of making Leo all-too-eager to please, complete with "okay-okay-okay" ad libs, to Richard Donner. Donner laughed and said, "Do that! Do that!"
• On the side of Riggs' refrigerator is a U.S. Army Military Police School diploma.
• Riggs was originally to die on the boat, but the producer decided to make more movies, hence his survival, after being shot three times.
• The scene where Mel Gibson attaches cables to the stilts of a mountain-top home and pulls it down cost over $500,000.
• SPOLIER: An alternate ending to the movie featured a Thanksgiving dinner at the Murtaugh house which is attended by both Riggs and Rika Van Dan Haas. Director Richard Donner later decided that Rika should be killed to further fuel Riggs' hatred of the South African diplomats. With Rika dead, the Thanksgiving dinner scene had to be scrapped.
• When the family's getting ready to watch the commercial with their daughter, "Tales from the Crypt" (1989) is on TV, which was produced by the film's director, Richard Donner.

Awards

1. Oscar
   Event: Academy Awards, USA
   Result: Nominated
   Category: Best Effects, Sound Effects Editing
   Recipient(s): Robert G. Henderson, Alan Robert Murray
2. BMI Film Music Award
   Event: BMI Film & TV Awards
   Result: Won
   Category:
   Recipient(s): Michael Kamen, Eric Clapton, David Sanborn