Movie Review: ‘The Naked Gun’

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The Naked Gun (“the new version”) is the funniest movie I have seen in years and a breath of fresh air in today’s world. I laughed out loud frequently during the entire 85-minute runtime, and I will be watching it again because I am sure I missed some jokes. The cast and crew did a fantastic job replicating and updating the style and humor of the original movies and way-too-short-lived TV series for a modern audience. Liam Neeson is a perfect successor to the late, great Leslie Nielsen.

The plot (or P.L.O.T.) is a little thin (probably to make room for more comedy). Frank Drebin Jr. (Liam Neeson) has followed in his father’s footsteps as a member of Police Squad, an elite-ish organization in a reality that does not conform to logic and reason. The film starts with Drebin trying to foil a bank robbery, then transitions to an investigation of a car crash victim. The victim’s widow, Beth Davenport (Pamela Anderson) insists it was not a suicide as Drebin tries to rule it, so Drebin follows the trail toward a potential global catastrophe.

Within that structure, anything is possible from fourth wall breaks to blink-and-you-miss-it cameos to hilarious and subtle sight gags to the supernatural. This is not the type of movie that you can watch while playing on your phone and still get the gist of the story/jokes. The story may not be too surprising or overly suspenseful, but the jokes come out of nowhere and require your full attention to keep up. Even then, the audience could be laughing so much that one or two things still get missed. It is amazing how much they were able to cram into what would normally be considered a short runtime.

Be ready to stay through the credits as well. Marvel may have popularized the post-credits scenes in the last decade, but it was the original Naked Gun and Airplane movies that had me scanning the credits for more random jokes. And this movie honors that tradition with several jokes littered through the credits all the way to the end.