| “ | Why don't you save your strength? You're gonna need it. | „ |
| ~ Mr. Joshua to Martin Riggs. |
Sub-Commander Jack Joshua is the secondary antagonist in the 1987 buddy cop action hit film Lethal Weapon, the first installment of the Lethal Weapon franchise.
He is General Peter McAllister's second-in-command and the co-founder of the Shadow Company. During their operations in Los Angeles, California, Joshua is tasked with targeting Detectives Roger Murtaugh and Martin Riggs, especially forming a rivalry with the latter.
He was portrayed by Gary Busey.
His Evil Ranking[]
What Makes Him Close to Being Pure Evil?[]
- During the Vietnam War, Jack Joshua and his boss Peter McAllister founded Shadow Company, a corrupt military organization involved primarily in drug dealing, money laundering, and so forth. They got their heroin from a VC base they raided and robbed. When Martin Riggs meets McAllister he disdainfully reveals that he has dealt with before, implying that they have been involved criminal activity for a while.
- During the movie itself, he has a prostitute named Dixie poison Amanda Hunsaker, the daughter of Michael Hunsaker, as a way to intimidate him to continue to launder money for them.
- Willingly holds his arm for his boss to burn with a lighter while he barely reacts, as a way to intimidate another crime boss into doing business with him.
- Later on at a Christmas party, he attacks the party and kills Michael when he no longer needs him.
- He later kills Dixie as a way to tie up loose ends.
- Kidnaps Roger Murtaugh's teenage daughter Rianne, and kill her boyfriend in the process, to draw out Murthaugh.
- While in their custody, Joshua sexually harassed Rianne and taunted Murtaugh about it, saying "Your daughter looks really pretty naked."
- Holds Rianne hostage in front of Murtaugh, and shoots him in the arm.
- When Martin Riggs turns out to be alive, and sniping their men, he and McAllister kidnap Riggs and Murtaugh.
- Assists McAllister in torturing Riggs and Murtaugh in their underground base beneath a nightclub.
- He and McAllister make creepy moves on Rianne, who is only a teenager. It is never established whether this is out of genuine perversion, to intimidate Murthaugh, or a mixture of both.
- When he spots Riggs, Murtaugh, and Rianne trying to escape, Joshua opens fire on the crowded nightclub they are in, killing one civilian.
- He violently carjacks random civilians and opens fire on the general public in an attempt to kill Riggs & Murtaugh.
- When Riggs and Murtaugh escape from their Clutches, he gleefully attempts to kill Murtaugh's entire family out of both spite and sadism, and also kills two cops in the process.
- While the movie is a comedy action film, and he has some occasionally comedic moments, he is still taken seriously in-universe and he has some occasionally comedic moments.
- While some could say that he is loyal to his boss, as he did willingly hold his arm out form him to burn, but that could easily be because McAllister pays him a lot of money, and gives him people to kill, especially he didn't particularly sad about McAllister's death.
What Prevents Him from Being Pure Evil?[]
- He fails the Heinous Standards to the sequel villains, Arjen Rudd and Pieter Vorstedt, who with give or take the same amount of resources, commit many of the same crimes as he does, but with an overall slightly higher kill count with 9 confirmed kills, including a relatively cruel one where they drown a women to death, are flat out white supremacists who have presumably committed atrocities against black people in apartheid South Africa, and have a much more personal animosity with the protagonists than Joshua by killing Martin Riggs' wife before the events of the previous film.
External Links[]
- Jack Joshua on the Villains Wiki
