'The Naked Gun' Review: Sweet, Sweet Suspension of Disbelief
director akiva schaffer uses his comedic sensibilities to revive the police squad for 80 minutes of non-stop laughs
In recent years, it feels as if the studio comedies have verged on being relics of the past. The select few studio comedies that make it to theatrical releases each year are usually dependent on an auteur filmmaker, such as Wes Anderson or Ethan Coen, or having ties to an existing IP, such as the upcoming Freakier Friday. Even more prolific comedy sequels like Happy Gilmore 2 and the Knives Out films have found themselves on streamers. While the indie comedy will forever find a way to thrive, something like The Naked Gun feels as if there’s a large, unwanted onus on the project, not shrouding it like a dark cloud, or presenting it as some dire last bastion for a mid-budget studio comedy. The Naked Gun, as many have pointed out, is the sole ‘pure’ studio comedy that’ll hit cinemas this summer. While indeed based on existing IP, and serving as an indirect ‘legacy sequel’ to the iconic Zucker/Abrams/Zucker trilogy of the same name, everything about The Naked Gun feels fresh. Its lead role is a perfect encapsulation of this. Liam Neeson, a actor with a vast and storied career, has become synonymous with a ‘tough-guy’ persona, due to the very many thrillers he plays some variation of a grizzled, determined protagonist. Neeson’s casting as the lead in this new iteration of The Naked Gun is as good a sell as you can get in terms of freshness, a bold, convincing choice that is an outside the box pick on paper, but feels hard to imagine any other way having seen the new film. This statement is applicable to about every element of the movie (compliment).
The Naked Gun was directed by Akiva Schaffer, one third of the much-lauded comedy trio known as The Lonely Island, who previously directed cult comedies such as Hot Rod and Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, and stars Liam Neeson as Frank Drebin Junior, son of the Leslie Nielsen’s Frank Drebin from the original Naked Gun films. The film follows Drebin trying to solve a series of crimes related to tech billionaire Richard Cane’s (Danny Huston) evil schemes, with the help of femme fatale Beth Davenport (Pamela Anderson).
Pay the brief synopsis little mind, as the film truly honours the comedic spirit of its predecessors, using the archetypal framework of a modern action-thriller film as a vehicle to play out a infinite number of comedic gags, embracing physical comedy, ‘meta’ humour, and parodying the likes of the Mission: Impossible franchise and numerous Neeson thrillers. Many new entries in legacy franchises often bend over backward to tie to their predecessors, which can come at a detriment, and bog down the film with too much nostalgia or callbacks. The Naked Gun does the exact opposite, being very tongue-in-cheek with the fact that it has chosen to be a legacy sequel, and pokes fun at the over-reverence many other franchises may have toward their original source material, which in a very fitting way, honours the spirit of the original series in the truest way. Schaffer also stays true to the spiritual roots of Naked Gun, incorporating lots of great physical comedy, with a modern touch.
In an age where the definition of movie stardom is so undefined, along comes Neeson, subverting his usual on-screen persona in such an unafraid manner, truly starlike. His commitment to playing such outlandish material so straight is unwavering, and it feels as if all of his line-deliveries have ‘all-timer’ qualities imbued into them. While The Naked Gun can hopefully herald a return to a comedy renaissance, it’s potential for a comeback story doesn’t end there. Pamela Anderson is superlative as Beth Davenport, the film’s co-lead. Anderson is very much on a comeback story of her own, fresh of the heels of her grand return in The Last Showgirl at last year’s fall film festivals. Much like Neeson, she is someone with a certain persona associated to her name, one that she likewise gets to gleefully subvert in The Naked Gun. The chemistry between Neeson and Anderson is frankly a delight to watch. It feels like the two leads are just having as much fun as the audience surely will with the whole piece.
As a whole, it is hard to go into-depth to The Naked Gun without spoiling just how great the comedic pieces are. It feels refreshing, in so many ways, to have so many different kinds of humour rolled into one film, without stepping on each other’s proverbial toes. Much credit must be given to comedy director extrordinaire Akiva Schaffer for this. So many bits in this film feel like prime Lonely Island sketches, and that is meant as the highest compliment. Between the classic humour of malapropism, a series of running gags, science-defying action, many tasteful digs at big tech/crypto culture, a scene riffing on Vertigo, and even a incomprehensible mid-film detour involving a snowman, Schaffer is able to render the film extremely dextere on the comedic front, which is really all it needs. Perhaps most importantly, the film does not take itself seriously, gleefully so, and everyone is the better for it. Should The Naked Gun be the saviour of the studio comedy after all, it would be a strangely fitting film to do so. In any case, it would be hard not to have a great time with it. There won’t be a better time this summer to suspend your disbelief at the movies.