The Naked Gun
Liam Neeson turns to comedy as a totally inept LA cop in this surreal, heavy-handed remake of the 1988 spoof.
The son also rises: Liam Neeson as Frank Drebin Jr
Image courtesy of Paramount Pictures.
It was funny at the time. Actually, it was side-splitting. But that was then. The brothers David and Jerry Zucker and their colleague Jim Abrahams invented a whole new brand of comedy with Airplane! (1980) and The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! (1988), the latter an off-shoot of the trio’s TV series Police Squad! (1982). Their spoofery was fresh, unexpected, ingenious and outrageous. The art was in the casting of serious actors placed into ludicrous situations, seemingly oblivious of the absurdity around them. Such was the commercial and critical success of The Naked Gun that two sequels were forthcoming, The Naked Gun 2½: The Smell of Fear (1991) and Naked Gun 33⅓: The Final Insult (1994). Leslie Nielsen was the star, cast as the hopelessly incompetent LA police lieutenant Frank Drebin who, like his predecessor Inspector Clouseau, managed to achieve the impossible in spite of himself.
Comedy, like a good joke, is funny the first time. But so much of humour hinges on the element of surprise. Even a decent gag loses its traction after the fourth and fifth telling. And here the gags quickly become foreseeable. Be that as it may, few dramatic actors today sound more like Leslie Nielsen than Liam Neeson. And he’s dead serious. He was the heartbreak at the heart of the otherwise hilarious Love Actually. But here he’s playing Frank Drebin Jr, whereas he might have been funnier if he had just been himself. Paul Walter Hauser, as Drebin’s partner Ed Hocken Jr (son of George Kennedy’s Ed Hocken in the first film) is actually funnier for playing Ed absolutely straight, although he's given precious little comic business.
Unlike the original, much of the plot centres on modern technology, in particular Drebin Jr’s electric autonomous car, whose directions he steadfastly ignores. “I remember when the only things that were electric were eels, chairs and Catherine Zeta-Jones in Chicago,” he grumbles. There’s also the Doomsday gadget developed by tech billionaire Richard Cane (a smarmy, deadpan Danny Huston) which, once turned on, activates man’s most aggressive, animalistic emotions, to devastating effect. But the plot is just a device on which to hang all the slapstick, double entendres, ‘comic’ misunderstandings and Drebin’s autistic take on American idioms. There’s also a femme fatale in the shape of Pamela Anderson, who is game for a laugh, although her over-the-top scat performance in a jazz club is embarrassing. As is her and Drebin’s ménage à trois with a snowman (seriously).
Of course, humour is a very personal thing and no doubt there will be viewers just wetting themselves at Liam Neeson’s farcical antics, particularly at the dirtier bits. But it left this viewer cold, wondering how modern remakes of such silent classics as Buster Keaton’s The General (1927) and Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times (1936) would fare in today’s climate. Of course, back then, comedy also had charm and humanity as well as astonishing stunt work.
Drebin Jr, like Neeson himself, is a widower who falls for the charms of Pamela Anderson (obviously), and the two actors work well together. So well, it seems, that the stars have become an item in real life, which is sweet.
JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Cast: Liam Neeson, Pamela Anderson, Paul Walter Hauser, CCH Pounder, Kevin Durand, Cody Rhodes, Liza Koshy, Eddie Yu, Danny Huston, Dave Bautista, Busta Rhymes, Michael Bisping, ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic, Priscilla Presley.
Dir Akiva Schaffer, Pro Seth MacFarlane and Erica Huggins, Screenplay Dan Gregor, Doug Mand and Akiva Schaffer, Ph Brandon Trost, Pro Des Bill Brzeski, Ed Brian Scott Olds, Music Lorne Balfe, Costumes Betsy Heimann and Maria Tortu, Sound Dan Kenyon, Dave Bautista’s costumer Nikki Segal.
Paramount Pictures/Fuzzy Door Productions-Paramount Pictures.
85 mins. USA. 2025. UK and US Rel: 1 August 2025. Cert. 15.
