The Naked Gun
This Liam Neeson-fronted reboot recaptures the silliness and laughs of the Leslie Nielsen films.
We don’t see many comedy movies playing on the big screen anymore.
That’s a pretty common statement, but it does ring true. While there was a point in time when audiences would be treated to multiple studio comedy movies a month, at this point in time, we get one or two every season. And that’s if we’re lucky. And while comedy has still survived through sub-genres pertaining to action and horror, one type of film that has been dead for well over a decade is the spoof movie.
The spoof movie used to be a safe bet. The Zucker Brothers gave us hits such as “Airplane!,” “Top Secret,” and of course “The Naked Gun trilogy.” All of which lampooned big movies and series at the time, while still finding clever ways to tell jokes. In the 2000s, the Wayans delivered the “Scary Movie” franchise, which started fresh but slowly but surely turned the tide on the spoof movies. Thus, we got such memorable gems like “Disaster Movie,” “Epic Movie,” “Vampires Suck,” “The Starving Games,” “Super Fast,” and who could forget the all-time classic that was “Meet the Spartans.”
Paramount had been trying to resurrect “The Naked Gun” franchise for some time, at one point Ed Helms was attached to star. But strangely enough, 2025 feels like the perfect time for the franchise to make its comeback. The franchise needs a frontman like Liam Neeson to take charge, a thespian who has gone on to become a self-serious action star in the latter part of his career. Much like Leslie Nielsen was known for when he appeared in “Airplane!,” Neeson has flirted with comedy before, but has never fully committed to it, much like he is with “The Naked Gun.”
In the new film, Neeson plays Police Squad Lieutenant Frank Drebin Jr, the son of Nielsen’s character from the original three films. Much like his father, Drebin is committed to keeping the streets of Los Angeles safe, and most of all, he loves working for Police Squad. Even if his boss, Chief Davis (CCH Pounder), has had enough of his and his co-worker Captain Ed Hocken Jr.’s (Paul Walter Hauser) nonsense.
With Police Squad nearing closure, Drebin takes on a new case when Beth Davenport (Pamela Anderson) enters his office, grieving the death of her brother, a big-tech employee who is believed to have killed himself. But of course, there’s more than meets the eye, especially as big-tech CEO Richard Cane (Danny Huston) has paired with professional criminal Sig Gustafan (Kevin Durand) in a plot for world domination.
There’s honestly not much to the plot of the movie, or at least nothing of importance. And that’s more than ok. As “The Naked Gun” never once takes itself seriously, that’s what makes it feel so special.
From his experience of being a part of The Lonely Island to directing comedy cult-classics like “Hot Rod” and “Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping,” director Akiva Schaffer proves to be a natural fit for the IP. “The Naked Gun” has all the crudeness, all the political incorrectness, and all the stupidity that you’d expect from Schaffer, who finds ways to churn laughs that are far more than just saying something offensive. “The Naked Gun” constantly finds ways to one-up itself, with Neeson, Anderson, and Huston all giving their utmost commitment to playing it as straight as possible. The magic of this franchise has always been the characters’ lack of self-awareness, and that hasn’t changed at all.
Neeson gives one of his best performances in years as Frank Drebin Jr. After playing the action star for the last decade and a half, Neeson finally lets himself be in on the joke, and the results are enormously satisfying. Neeson is never interested in making Frank feel like a real person or even a good person; he shows to be more than willing to show the character’s immaturity.
Anderson is also a delight, playing perfectly off of Neeson as Beth, between singing Jazz-like gibberish or rivaling Frank’s directness. Durand also gets several standout moments with both Neeson and Anderson, including an amusing bit about his obsession with the Black Eyed Peas.
It feels like a miracle that “The Naked Gun” works as well as it does. With a runtime of 85 minutes, the jokes don’t stop, even during the ending credits. And for almost all of those jokes to be as effective as they are, it’s a major accomplishment. If you’ve been longing to see a good laugh-out-loud comedy on the big screen again, you won’t want to miss this.