The Naked Gun (2025)

Serving 20 Years for Mans Laughter

or

"Usual is Unusual, Usually" 

 

I was worried about this one. The original "Naked Gun" series (the ones that starred Leslie Nielsen as Lt. Frank Drebin) came out of of the Z-A-Z team—the guys that made the original Airplane!—they would be David and Jerry Zucker and Jim Abrahams, who had a free-wheeling style of evergreen comedy and an impeccable sense of timing that made their movies work, despite production values that would have been suited for a Hallmark movie. That stuff's tough to duplicate—just ask anyone who saw the non-Z-A-Z sequel, Airplane 2, which was a desperate cash-grab and desperately unfunny despite writers credits by two of the geniuses behind "The Simpsons". 

 

"The Naked Gun" films came out of a Z-A-Z TV series that lasted all of six episodes (before being cancelled) called "Police Squad!" and I remember it as being fitfully funny and not quite up to par with the laugh-a-minute styles of Airplane! or their "Elvis-fights-the-Nazis" follow-up, Top Secret! The ideas were good, playing with the tropes of television and especially cop shows, but they were slightly hampered by 1980's TV censorship and the comedic pace never matched their movie work. That changed eight years later when they revived the concept for feature films and everything went up a few notches. Three "Naked Gun" films were produced between 1988 and 1994, the last only having David Zucker involved with the writing. The complete Z-A-Z team acted as producers. There'd been talk about doing a fourth "Naked Gun" movie with Nielsen, but nothing came of it. His death in 2010 put the stopper in it.

Now, thanks to producer Seth McFarlane's clout, there's a new one, the duplicate-titled The Naked Gun, featuring Liam Neeson as Frank Drebin, Jr., the son of Leslie Nielsen's character, and he's a chip off the old blockhead. Not the most original of concepts, but Neeson does such an amazing job of playing it absolutely straight while still nailing the comic timing that it's a pleasure to see him make the Nielsen transition from drama to high comedy with nary a misstep. The review for the movie at RogerEbert.com stated that it is "legitimately" Neeson's best screen performance, and one comes out of The Naked Gun actually believing it, so deft is his way of fusing comedy with the deadly-serious "I have skills" intensity that he brought to his "action-star" phase.

What's the plot? Who cares? Surely, you don't think the efficacy of a "Naked Gun" entry lies in the carefully crafted screenplay. No, this is a matter of throwing all kinds of shit at a fan—which became a literal joke in Airplane!—and seeing what sticks. But, loosely, it's about a tech billionaire (Danny Huston, who's sounding more and more like his Dad every movie), who's into breaking things and starting from scratch...including populations. Somehow, Junior Drebin gets involved in all this, as well as getting involved with the sister (Pamela Anderson, who's actually quite good) of an "accident" victim.

One is struck by how good the movie looks, with lots of mood-lighting and leaning into noir styles (as opposed to the Z-A-Z approach of key lighting everything, lest you miss a joke in the shadows, and also aping the style of its inspiration, "'M' Squad"). That's a bit of a shock, but seeing as this one is a couple generations removed from its source, it's a good shock.

Is it funny? Comedy is always subjective (he hedged)—one man's laugh-riot is another's snooze-fest—but, the first hour or so provided some genuine howlers and some inspired bits of business...then right about the time director Shaffer cuts to a shot of the house band of the villain's "Bengal Club" (and does nothing with it), the movie coasts to the end, wasting joke opportunities, occasionally perking up, but seemingly on comedy auto-pilot until the end. That wouldn't be so discouraging if the first two acts weren't so darned good.

Hopefully, there'll be more. It's refreshing to find a movie that's funnier and sillier than watching the nightly news. 

 

Oh. And don't call me "Shirley."

  Wilhelm Alert: @ 01:15.00