THE NAKED GUN – Review by Valerie Kalfrin
The Naked Gun is right on target, a laugh-out-loud funny crime spoof I didn’t know I needed. Liam Neeson, Pamela Anderson and company deliver a screwball LA noir full of sight gags and sunshine, loopy puns, rapid patter, and enough raunch to fit within a PG-13 rating.
The film is a sequel to and soft reboot of 1988’s hit The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! and its two sequels. Neeson plays Frank Drebin Jr., son of the original protagonist, played by the late Leslie Nielsen. Early on, Neeson kneels before a framed portrait of his onscreen dad, as if taking up the torch, or at least his comedic loafers.
“I want to be just like you,” Neeson says. “At the same time, completely different.”
Thankfully, director Akiva Schaffer, who co-wrote the screenplay with Dan Gregor and Doug Mand, both of Chip ’n Dale: Rescue Rangers, has a good handle on how to make this Naked Gun fresh within its familiar universe. That includes nods at the earlier films that aren’t obtrusive while emulating its fast-and-thick schtick. Not every joke lands, but enough do that you forgive the ones that don’t.
After crashing a bank robbery where the thieves escape with a plot device, Drebin and his partner, Ed (Paul Walter Hauser, The Fantastic Four: First Steps), the son of series original George Kennedy, are reassigned to the traffic unit. The two soon investigate a fatality that might be linked to both the robbery and a tech CEO (Danny Huston, Horizon: An American Saga) who has designs about electric cars and rebooting the world.
Like Nielsen, Neeson’s earlier career as a dramatic actor helps fuel the comedy. This new Drebin is again a decent cop but a dimwit who literally shoots from the hip or overhead, and Neeson’s deadpan delivery (in that marvelous Irish brogue) sells some quips outright while letting others sneak up a moment later. His action chops from thrillers like Taken and Retribution add a meta level of humor to the fight scenes, with Drebin believably throwing and taking punches even as he tucks, rolls, and disarms foes in ridiculous ways.
Drebin finds a possible ally in Beth (Anderson, The Last Showgirl), the deceased’s sister and a true-crime novelist who makes up her fictional scenarios. (Say that with a straight face.) Anderson matches Neeson’s committed energy with breathy sincerity and a tongue-in-cheek attitude, sending up her Baywatch image with a hilarious jazz club performance and innuendo.
Add CCH Pounder (Chicago Med) as Drebin’s exasperated boss, cameos such as Busta Rhymes (Everybody Still Hates Chris) as a tripped-up suspect, and plenty of crazy credits, and The Naked Gun revives what made audiences love it the first time around. With laughs all the way through, it’s welcome comfort food.
