‘The Naked Gun’ REVIEW: An Old-School Comedy for the Modern Age
‘The Naked Gun’ REVIEW: An Old-School Comedy for the Modern Age
Liam Neeson as Lt. Frank Drebin Jr. in The Naked Gun | Still from Paramount Pictures
The filmmakers behind the new Naked Gun reboot/sequel know that Hollywood doesn’t “make ‘em like they used to.” For a studio comedy in 2025, making it the old-school way can mean a couple of things, like theatrical releasing instead of straight-to-streaming, runtimes on the shorter side of 90 minutes, and, most importantly, having actual jokes. And not just verbal wit and improvised riffing but a visual wit to match, filling the screen with gags galore from the opening frame to the end credits. The Naked Gun succeeds on all fronts, taking the same ridiculous spirit that the original series and films were made with and delivering an old-school comedy for the modern age.
A key element that makes the Naked Gun films work is the cast refusing to wink at the screen and acknowledge they’re in a comedy, playing it like they’re in the most serious version of the noir-police-procedurals they’re spoofing. For that task, there could not be a better successor to Leslie Nielsen’s straight-faced buffoonery than cinema’s current leading geriatric hero, Liam Neeson.
Neeson is the unlikely 21st century action star, the prolific, stoic face of the mid-budget thriller, pivoting well into his career as an established and acclaimed dramatic actor to almost exclusively star in generic actioners that feel below his weight class and age group. He’s like a present-day Charles Bronson, if Bronson had an Academy Award nomination under his belt – shifting ever so slightly from roles as ex-cops to ex-criminals, hitmen to government agents, always out for vengeance or one last job, always brandishing a gun on the poster, always playing it completely straight despite the widening crevice between his physical capabilities and the demands of an action script, lending his name and signature gruffness to the most anonymous works.
When you think of a Liam Neeson movie, you’re probably thinking of something closer to the Taken series than Schindler’s List. His action movie screen persona makes all his films indistinguishable from one another, but in comedy, it’s his secret weapon.
Liam Neeson as Lt. Frank Drebin Jr. in The Naked Gun | Still from Paramount Pictures
As Frank Drebin Jr., Neeson doesn’t stray too far away from the law enforcement types he usually plays and the seriousness with which he plays them. The only difference is that Drebin exists in a ridiculous, nonsensical world that obeys no rules. The Naked Gun begins with a scene that you might even find in a typical Neeson actioner: there’s a gang of armed robbers holding a bank hostage, an ominous man breaking into a safety deposit box to find a plot device (which in this film is, of course, named P.L.O.T. Device). An intensely pulsating score plays like it’s the opening heist scene of The Dark Knight, as a swarm of police barricades the streets outside, training their weapons at the door, steeling themselves for a gunfight.
That’s all standard fare for a cop movie. That is, until a little schoolgirl skips into frame, past the cop cars and the guns, and right into the bank. The schoolgirl is none other than Lt. Frank Drebin Jr. in the world’s greatest disguise, revealing himself as he whips off a mask and grows from middle-schooler size to Neeson’s true lanky frame. In a schoolgirl uniform several sizes too small, Neeson takes down the bank robbers like he’s a clown crossed with John Wick. In his hands, a lollipop is a lethal weapon, and the unconscious body of a bank robber is a bowling ball to knock over the other robbers like they’re bowling pins.
Whereas the more recent Neeson action films try to incorporate his age into the story, The Naked Gun acts as though he’s just another forty-something action star, a man who can do the impossible without breaking a sweat or too wry a smile. He’s in on the joke, and he doesn’t have to keep reminding you of that.
Pamela Anderson as Beth Davenport in The Naked Gun | Still from Paramount Pictures
The Naked Gun’s supporting cast is just as game as its lead. A noir-tinged parody is only as good as its femme fatale, and Pamela Anderson is note-perfect as Beth Davenport, who teams up with Drebin to uncover the truth behind her brother’s mysterious death and is styled perfectly to look like she stepped out of a moody, sultry 1940s crime film.
The film goes up another level whenever Drebin and Beth are paired up, and their chemistry is especially electric because she never has to play the straight man to his antics. Anderson gets to play the same color of kooky as Neeson, delightfully bouncing off each other’s oddball energy.
When the two find themselves in the exclusive jazz club of the film’s villain, Richard Cane (played by Danny Huston), and have to break into a top-secret room to obtain key evidence, Beth provides the distraction so that Drebin can get into the room. She steps up to the club stage, grabbing the mic, commanding the band to follow her lead, for a second seeming as though she’s about to seriously sweep the crowd of their feet with a seductive ballad, then instead launching into an improvised scatting performance, wailing like a cat in the middle of the night, confusing the crowd, dragging on for exactly too long. She’s showstopping in every sense of the word.
Neeson and Anderson play all the shades of ridiculousness so genuinely, from slapstick to romantic. The film takes a short detour to a wintry lovers getaway - even though the rest of the film is set in sunny Los Angeles – for a cheesy montage, complete with soft, glowing lighting, stolen glances, shy smiles, and an 80s soundtrack. This particular montage then doubles down on the joke again and again until it becomes a different kind of sequence entirely, the Neeson-Anderson pair completely selling the romance even as the gags go off the rails.
For a different contingent, the “old-fashioned way” of comedy can’t exist in today’s world because they think we’ve become too sensitive and politically correct to take a joke. The Naked Gun has jokes for that crowd too, though they might be surprised to find that they’re not so much laughing with the movie as they are being laughed at by the movie.
The villain Richard Cane is a completely unsubtle mishmash of Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, a tech billionaire who is as stupid as he is rich. His big evil plan involves ending the world so he can remake it the way he wants, in the “old-fashioned way”, which really means restoring the dumbest things that have ever started culture wars. Cane’s revolutionary vision is a world where he’s able to say slurs and smoke indoors again.
Well, the new Naked Gun proves Cane, and all the people who think like him, wrong.
Comedy is here to stay, just not for people like that.
‘The Naked Gun’ is now showing in cinemas nationwide.
