by Anthony O'Connor
Worth: $15.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Liam Neeson, Pamela Anderson, Paul Walter Hauser, Danny Huston, CCH Pounder, Kevin Durand, Busta Rhymes
Intro:
... a remarkably consistent chuckle machine, lean and confident, that reminds an audience that sometimes it’s okay to just point at something funny and laugh like a fat spider.
Believe it or not, there was once a time when comedy movies were relatively common at the cinema. And we’re not talking funny superhero movies, cop movies with jokes or indie movies that feature wry, knowing dialogue, but rather deadset, 100% pure comedy flicks whose sole purpose was to make as large an audience as possible bust a gut laughing into their popcorn.
Films like Flying High!, Top Secret, Space Balls and, of course, 1988’s The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! Starring a brilliantly deadpan Leslie Nielsen as Lieutenant Frank Drebin, the film was essentially a parody of police procedural clichés and an excuse to hose the audience with clever word play, funny sight gags and enough slapstick to tickle even the most sour faced moll’s funnybone. The film was a big hit and spawned two sequels, 1991’s The Naked Gun 2½: The Smell of Fear (which was pretty damn good) and 1994’s Naked Gun 33⅓: The Final Insult (which was…less so). After that, the series spawned a whole lot of imitators that further diluted the formula until it was pretty much forgotten by anyone not old enough to remember video stores.
However, now in this year of 2025, The Naked Gun returns. And you know what? In defiance of all logic and reason, it’s actually pretty solid.
The Naked Gun tells the tale of Lieutenant Frank Drebin Jr. (Liam Neeson), an old school copper who continues his father’s legacy of bumbling around, occasionally solving crimes and causing copious shenanigans.
After his messy resolution of a bank robbery, in which a P.L.O.T. Device is stolen from a safe deposit box, Frank is reassigned to a case involving tech billionaire Richard Cane (Danny Huston). He also meets the vampy sister of a murdered software engineer, Beth Davenport (Pamela Anderson), with whom he is immediately smitten. But what dark secrets does Cane hide? And is Beth involved more than she’s letting on? And should Frank have another chili dog? What could possibly go wrong?
The Naked Gun is, at its core, a very, very silly movie. Unrepentantly so. It’s not even vaguely political, and has no particular agenda beyond “what would be a funny thing we could put here?” It doesn’t always work, mind you. The hit to miss ratio is somewhere around the 50/50 or 60/40 mark, however the jokes come so thick and fast that you’re bound to at least get a few decent chuckles in the brisk runtime. A gag involving the building of a snowman, an interrogation by Frank and a couple of voiceover jokes are, honestly, as funny as anything from the original series, which is impressive.
Liam Neeson is clearly having a hoot playing Frank and though his deadpan isn’t quite as classy as Nielsen’s, it works for the most part. Pamela Anderson is an absolute treasure here, gamely committing to all the broad comic bits with alacrity (her improv jazz moment is a sight to behold) and she sparks off her real life bae Neeson in a very charming manner. The rest of the cast are all solid, with Paul Walter Hauser, CCH Pounder and Kevin Durand all getting their moments to shine. The script from Dan Gregor, Doug Mand and Akiva Schaffer works well and the direction from Schaffer (a veteran of comedy group The Lonely Island) is very slick indeed.
So, is The Naked Gun as good as the original films? Not the first two, but there’s a case to be made that it improves upon the third. More than that, it’s a remarkably consistent chuckle machine, lean and confident, that reminds an audience that sometimes it’s okay to just point at something funny and laugh like a fat spider.
Recommended for those in need of a giggle, who aren’t one of the aforementioned sour-faced molls.
