Entertainment
Unhinged, Raunchy Action Comedy Revival Belts Out An Unthinkable Amount Of Laughs Per Minute
By Robert Scucci
| Published
Sometimes you just want to watch an action comedy where nothing is at stake aside from how hard you’re supposed to laugh. The Naked Gun, which came out earlier this year, is the perfect example of top-tier buffoonery taking the driver’s seat, forcing you to sit back and get pummeled with shtick because you’re in a self-driving comedy car that slams into as many punchlines, verbal and visual, as humanly possible. The only collateral damage in this legacy sequel is your sides, which will be clutched into submission as you guffaw your way through the premise, thanks to Liam Neeson’s deadpan delivery and Pamela Anderson’s commitment to the bit.
Gleefully carrying the Naked Gun franchise torch into a new generation without compromising its original appeal, The Naked Gun is a full-on slapstick masterclass that fans of the original trilogy, Airplane, and BASEketball will devour.
The Literal P.L.O.T. Device
The Naked Gun centers on Liam Neeson’s Lieutenant Frank Drebin Jr., who is carrying out the legacy of his late father (Leslie Nielsen). On a convoluted mission to track down the Primordial Law Of Toughness Device, or P.L.O.T. Device, his shoot first and ask questions later tactics land him in trouble with Police Chief Davis (CCH Pounder), who is tired of playing fast and loose with the law. Frank is paired with Beth Davenport (Pamela Anderson), the sister of Simon Davenport, the software engineer who recently died in a car crash after trying to blow the whistle on the device’s dangers. His tech-mogul employer, Richard Cane (Danny Huston), immediately becomes a prime suspect.
Beth, a crime novelist, teams up with Frank, and the two aim to solve Simon’s death using whatever Police Squad resources they can scrape together. As layers of corporate corruption peel back, Frank and Beth form a romance that complicates matters when the going gets tough. Thankfully, they keep their eyes on the prize and stand to save the day in classic Police Squad fashion, leaving a trail of collateral damage behind them.
The Naked Gun Franchise Has Always Been A Numbers Game
The main reason The Naked Gun works is because it aims to jam as many jokes into its screenplay as possible. Clocking in at 85 minutes, not a second is wasted. The puns, both visual and verbal, hit in rapid succession, and the recurring gags come at a wild frequency. I lost count of how many times Frank and Captain Ed Hocken Jr. (Paul Walter Hauser) toss their stale cups of coffee off-screen before an unseen contributor handed him a fresh one.
Liam Neeson deserves a ton of credit because his willingness to play everything straight would make Leslie Nielsen proud. His action hero training over the past twenty years is clearly at work, giving him a Bryan Mills aura throughout the entire film. His stone-cold countenance plays perfectly off Pamela Anderson’s more overt slapstick delivery, resulting in a high-caliber comedy that keeps a straight face while forcing the viewer to hold back laughter long enough to avoid missing the next punchline.
Given how much shtick is packed into The Naked Gun, not every single joke lands. The bit about the champagne from Bill Cosby’s private collection immediately causing Beth to rethink taking a sip is funny, but the jokes hit harder when they aren’t topical. I don’t mind jokes at Cosby’s expense, and they’re more than deserved, but The Naked Gun franchise is sharper than that. Topical humor ages fast when its real-world relevance fades. Fortunately, those moments are rare, and we mostly get pelted with in-universe gags that are specific to the fiction at hand and much more evergreen.
A Worthy Legacy Sequel For Fans Of The Original Trilogy
The Naked Gun succeeds because it doesn’t pretend to be anything other than what it is. Its storyline is deliberately simple, which allows the gags to take center stage. You know where the mystery is heading, and the point is to enjoy the absurdity of the journey rather than the destination. The film also has strong rewatch value because the pacing is so frenetic that you will miss jokes the first time through. You’ll be too busy laughing at whatever you saw seconds before.
A pitch-perfect tribute to and extension of the original trilogy, The Naked Gun proves that legacy sequels don’t need to reinvent anything to win over a modern audience. If the property that spawned it still stands on its own, all it needs to do is give us more of the same. The Naked Gun gives us exactly that, and nothing more. It really doesn’t get better than this.
The Naked Gun is streaming on Paramount+.
