Images courtesy of Paramount Pictures
THE NAKED GUN— 4 STARS
For those who turn their noses at the preposterousness of The Naked Gun films, they’re missing the brilliance and difficulty of that style of comedy. If they’re younger, there’s a chance they have not seen slapstick forebearers like Laurel and Hardy and The Three Stooges who came before the creative team of Jerry Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and David Zucker, who built the movie series after their cancelled Police Squad! TV show. All they see and hear are the inappropriate jokes with no appreciation for so many other factors. There’s an art to it, and Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping director Akiva Schaeffer and his Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers writing partners Doug Mand and Dan Gregor have rekindled this spicy brand of spoof comedy for this brand new throwback sequel.
LESSON #1: AVOID THE LOW-HANGING FRUIT— If you’re asking, off the bat, what is “spoofable” today in 2025, and answer yourself with the cartoonish landscape of world and domestic politics, you’re identifying low-hanging fruit which would be too current and too lazy. Going there would date a parody film immediately, leading it to become an immediate time capsule buried on arrival. With great surprise, The Naked Gun avoids the caricatures of today’s famous faces that would have been utilized in the days of Leslie Nielsen for a humorous treatise on modern cop and action films. This focus, if you could believe it, keeps stakes nice and local versus the previous films, which maybe leaped a shade too far mixing in global terrorists, sitting Presidents, and foreign monarchs.
AARP-aged warrior and long-standing Hollywood tough guy Liam Neeson is Lt. Frank Drebin Jr. of Los Angeles’s Police Squad. Yes, our Taken action star is the son of Nielsen’s original. With another nod to the past, he’s partnered with Capt. Ed Hocken Jr., played by Paul Walter Hauser, genuflecting in the direction of George Kennedy. Don’t ask about any provocative progeny for the late O.J. Simpson’s Detective Nordberg, but enjoy a laugh anyway when the image is dropped.
Anyhow, a bold bank heist opens The Naked Gun, when the imposing, bleach-blond Sig Gustafson (professional movie brick house Kevin Durand) breaks into a safe deposit box to retrieve the ultra-secret P.L.O.T. Device for his tech CEO boss Richard Cane (fellow professional movie villain and old X-Men Origins: Wolverine co-star Danny Huston). Arriving on the scene underneath a mask-pull disguise as a skipping private school girl is Drebin to break up the crime in progress single-handedly. A quick string of clues between the bank job and an alleged vehicular suicide Drebin investigated recently links individuals and employees to Cane, inserting Frank’s nose in a social circle of the wealthy where it doesn’t belong and isn’t wanted.
As it turns out, the P.L.O.T. do-hickey is the Primordial Law of Toughness Device capable of pushing out frequencies that convert people back to their instinctual animal state. It was created by the man killed in the auto crash for the opposite purpose of calming people down instead of “calming people up.” He was the brother of one, Beth Davenport (the ravishing revelation that is Pamela Anderson), who is also hot on the trail of Richard Cane. Her vendetta unites with the sleuthing of Frank, and the sparks and shenanigans fly from there.
LESSON #2: THE ART OF OBVIOUS SUBTLETY— As stated before, there’s an art to this kind of comedy style, and it starts with two oxymorons. The first is “obvious subtlety.” Sight gags have been done forever, and they hammer their points home in mostly wordless and symbolic ways. Sometimes, they are done front and center for all to see. Yet, the original and new Naked Gun films both know how to layer them with the rest of the frame’s activity of movement or dialogue. When you see the gag, you know it, but, because it’s blended to a certain degree, it’s a treat to catch it in the moment. This is a movie where the body count of coffee cups triples that of any humans. The Naked Gun, like its predecessors, finds the groove to hide several background gags at a time or plot callbacks that pay off several times, increasing the gratification without feeling overstuffed or noticeably repetitive, especially in a movie that’s under 90 minutes.
LESSON #3: THE ART OF INTENTIONAL CLUELESSNESS— The other oxymoron is “intentional cluelessness.” This speaks to the tone and wherewithal to sell the absurdity present with a straight face. The writers and performers of The Naked Gun know exactly what they’re doing, but carry the need to sell the absurdity with a straight face. The stern control of speech and body language is completely key when phrases are turned with double entendres or idioms are smashed with literal interpretations. The moment the actors wink even the slightest, the jig is up and the ruse is over.
Upholding those traits is a tremendous performance challenge for any cast. Editing a scene to stitch the cheeky repartee together, which is done exceptionally here by Brian Scott Olds (The King of Staten Island), can only help line delivery and cadence so much. The true crispness, ensured with no hesitation, relies on the actors hitting their marks. Verbal choreography becomes just as important as the physical variety. Schaeffer found two fantastic lead vessels for this type of precision in Liam Neeson and Pamela Anderson.
Neeson’s gruff line readings, churning with all the gravel of his tall stature, are unwavering with the proper effect of deadpan humor. Who knew ten years ago in Ted 2, that his bit with Seth McFarlane’s bear buying Trix at the grocery store would be his audition tape for The Naked Gun? Sharing stellar scenes toe-to-toe and igniting the film’s relationship chemistry is Pamela Anderson, taking what should be the prerequisite dish role of a spoof and escalating that trope with investment and an equal sense of initiative as the lawman falling for her. Following the awards recognition she received last year in The Last Showgirl for correcting the ditzy image she was saddled with for decades, she continues one of the most rewarding career metamorphosises we may ever see. To hear these two might be a legitimate real-life couple since this film adds to the grinning delight of the movie.
Looking at the sum of all the parts and, to sound trendy, Akiva Schaeffer and this cast understood the assignment of The Naked Gun and passed with flying colors. When Mission: Impossible series composer Lorne Balfe’s muscular musical score slides right into the sass-and-brass fitting this franchise, you feel returned to the matching vein from how cherished and savvy these movies used to be. Best of all, the meticulous joke creation—between foregrounds, backgrounds, and scripted mockery—could not have been better translated to today’s attention spans and merged with the kinetic moviemaking chops of the action genre. Every now and then, there’s an uncorked zinger that will blow right by an off-color line, and the fact that we relish it as much as we absorb the unplanned shock is a testament to the patience of it all and how much they downright nailed it.
LOGO DESIGNED BY MEENTS ILLUSTRATED (#1326)
