Liam Neeson soars to new comedic heights as Frank Drebin Jr in The Naked Gun. Photo: Frank Masi/Paramount Studios.
The art of creating a genuinely funny spoof comedy is a very fine one.
For decades, it was a staple of cinema with the likes of Airplane/Flying High, Austin Powers, Spaceballs, Blazing Saddles and practically anything released by Monty Python. The biggest and most successful of the lot was The Naked Gun trilogy, led brilliantly by the incredible Leslie Nielsen.
Fast forward to the mid-2000s, and something quite unfortunate happened: spoof comedies were churned out every couple of months. Studios focused less on quality and more on making them cheaply, and above all else, they became painfully unfunny.
So when a legacy sequel to some of the most beloved comedies of all time is set to hit cinemas, it is completely understandable that when audiences reflect on many recent comedies *cough* Happy Gilmore 2 *cough* that have failed to bring the laughs, fears of The Naked Gun being a similar cash grab are justified.
Fortunately, The Naked Gun isn’t just a funny film; it’s a brilliant continuation of a nearly 40-year-old franchise.
Liam Neeson stars as Frank Drebin Jr (yes, even the casting is a joke: Liam/Leslie, Neeson/Nielson), an incredibly successful detective serving as part of the LAPD’s Police Squad.
When a man’s electric, self-driving vehicle drives him into a lake, Frank is called in to solve the case of how the man died. The painfully literal and incredibly oblivious detective is joined by the deceased man’s sister, Beth Davenport, played by an inspired Pamela Anderson.
Together, the pair track down Beth’s brother’s employer, a tech mogul looking to sell his devices to everyone across the world for nefarious purposes.
The synopsis I have given is brief and pretty straightforward, but this film is anything but.
It is a joke-a-second, 90-minute-long, eye-rolling, cringe-inducing, funny as hell rollercoaster that I never wanted to get off.
From the opening scene, this film knew what it was.
It doesn’t care about logic, rationale, or even delivering on the plot. Every sentence was either a setup or a punchline, and the movie’s setting was nothing more than a brief bit of context to which most of the jokes were parodying or ripping on.
While not every joke landed, whether that be because the references were dated or targeted primarily to Americans, the sheer number of them meant that it didn’t really matter.
There was something for everyone’s sense of humour. It had jokes that took 30 minutes to set up while also delivering potty humour. It had political commentary (my personal favourite kind of joke) as well as pop culture references. It took minutes-long tangents purely for comedic purposes while also having quick one-liners. It really was hilarious.
While all of these jokes were funny, they would not have been anywhere near as funny as they were without the two leads delivering them.
Much like Taken made Neeson an action hero, The Naked Gun could very well do the same for comedy. His dry, deadpan humour and his oblivious nature to the nonsense around him were gold.
Even with Neeson’s hilarious turn as Frank Drebin Jr, the scene stealer was Pamela Anderson. She understood the assignment she was given, and it genuinely may be her best role of her career. The film gave her a chance to show off her comedic chops and her acting skills. She dialled it all up to 11 and proved that when given material of substance, she can be brilliant.
The film’s runtime is also spot on.
It might not be the first thing a viewer thinks about, but with comedies, if they run too long, the jokes can start to feel spread out, or if they are a joke a minute, it can become exhausting.
Paramount and director Akiva Schaffer understood this and elected to have the film run just shy of 90 minutes, a length that has largely disappeared from modern cinema. It was the perfect amount of time to tell the story, deliver the jokes, include a few side gags, and wrap everything up in a nice bow without becoming annoying to watch.
Finally, stay for the end credits. While there isn’t a post-credit scene like modern superhero movies, there is one final message from Liam Neeson that was arguably the funniest joke in the entire film.
The Naked Gun is a massive home run for the spoof comedy genre, which has, up until recently, been left to die on streaming services. It’s funny, raunchy and just a short, sharp fun time at the movies that I hope more people see it.
The Naked Gun is showing in cinemas across the country.
