The Naked Gun
3 out of 5 stars

By J.C. Correa

Way back in 1995, the original Toy Story presented a memorable scene in which three little green aliens, stuck amidst an assortment of other toys inside a crane game, fervently hoped that the all-powerful “claw” would select one of them for deposit into a better life. As any of us who have spent countless hours at an arcade can attest, the notorious, shiny instrument is never as reliable as it was that instance during Pixar’s delectable confection. However, its streak of frustrating undependability joyously continues in The Naked Gun when it is tasked with pulling a car out of a swamp, proving to be just the right type of absurd visual gag that always felt right at home in these flicks when they were made back in the late ‘80s and ‘90s by the comedy team of David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker.

In fairness, I don’t think a single fan, let alone any casual filmgoer, has asked for a continuation or reboot of this series, especially without the participation of its long-since deceased star Leslie Nielsen. Still, it should be no surprise that an era like today’s, which trades almost exclusively in this very thing, would inevitably churn out just that. But as it turns out, in the hands of producer Seth MacFarlane, director Akiva Schaffer (a long-tenured Saturday Night Live creative alumni), and a writing team that also includes Shaffer, along with Dan Gregor and Doug Mand, The Naked Gun (they haven’t bothered to give this one a subtitle) ends up as a Hollywood rarity: The continuation of an IP that nobody wanted, that yet somehow proves to be a welcome throwback to a simpler time. 

Liam Neeson stars as Frank Drebin Jr., the son of Nielsen’s inept detective lieutenant who has unfortunately inherited his father’s singular gifts for police work. These include a penchant for transitional inner monologues over the sounds of a sultry saxophone. I am sure I am not alone in admitting that I had serious trepidation with regards to seeing the stoic Neeson convincingly portray a bumbling idiot. And yet, the thing that perhaps most won me over about the movie was its star precisely. Like his beloved Canadian predecessor, the Northern Irish actor approaches the role with a deadly deadpan demeanor that gloriously slices through all the absurdity. When he is tasked with being goofy, though not as skilled as Nielsen, he still delivers enough charm to sell a joke. 

Since it is a legacy sequel, Neeson’s Drebin Jr. is paired off at Police Squad with Paul Walter Hauser as the son of original series stalwart George Kennedy. The offspring of Captain Ed Hocken may be stocky like his old man, but the role is vastly underwritten, and Hauser’s comedic gifts are not given a chance to shine anywhere close to how Kennedy’s were in his day. Besides not having much to do, he is also not awarded any truly great lines, which is a shame. Should a sequel get to be made, it would benefit greatly by having Ed Jr. properly justify his presence. 

What does work very well is the other cast member that Neeson is matched with, which in this case turns out to be his leading lady Pamela Anderson. The bombshell screen icon fills the original’s narrative role of Priscilla Presley (who actually gets a blink-and-you-miss-it cameo here), a seductress who quickly gets smitten with Drebin Jr. The genuine chemistry between Neeson and Anderson goes a long way to selling the whole thing (the dirty talk they engage in is riotous, as is a bizarre threesome they share with a snowman), and the latter proves to be a talented comedienne; a skill set best evidenced during a terrific sequence in which she has to scat onstage with a jazz band. 

Films that embrace a wide range of comedic styles like this one usually run the risk of not having everything work, and The Naked Gun is no different. As the movie’s chief villain, Danny Huston is unmemorable and, quite frankly, a bit of a bore. Elsewhere there is an extended joke about a TiVo that simply goes nowhere and gets dull very quickly. As a whole, after a fairly entertaining first half, the flick inevitably loses steam in its last third and you really can tell by how noticeably the frequency of humor that lands begins to diminish.  

Thankfully, the first hour of its brief 85-minute runtime feels like the real thing for those of us who grew up with the zaniness that the team of Zucker, Abrahams, and Zucker gifted us over thirty years ago. And that critical point is primarily due to the fact that this new iteration embraces the same wonderful cocktail of slapstick, sight gags and puns galore that those original films used so well, and that sadly has disappeared from most contemporary comedies. Those movies (especially the 1988 original) made it a point to deliver a constant barrage of jokes of any and all kinds, ensuring that if you did not care for one of them, someone else surely did, while the next one would probably be to your liking, and so on and so forth. The best thing that the new picture has going for it is its open embrace and continuation of that distinguishable tradition.

It is also worth noting that the filmmakers have not shied away from humor that might be considered biting and edgy, at least by today’s ultra-sensitive standards. A sly reference to Bill Cosby, as well as the causal use of the word “retard” and a not-too-subtle indictment of racially-spawned police brutality come to mind as examples of this. Personally, I applaud the approach because I found it to be not only in step with the movie’s throwback aesthetic but also loose and liberating amidst the dull sterility of current norms. And if these bold choices don’t tickle your fancy, then a recurring joke about cops’ dependency on coffee played to its farcical hilt will probably be up your alley.  

The Naked Gun is currently playing in theaters.