(PG) ★★★★
Director: Akiva Schaffer.
Cast: Liam Neeson, Pamela Anderson, Paul Walter Hauser, Danny Huston, CCH Pounder, Kevin Durand.
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| "No, I will not fluff your pillow." |
Rebooting a beloved classic comedy from a long-lost genre? Bold move.
It's a move that pays off handsomely in this uncalled-for rehash, which is surprisingly faithful and thankfully hilarious.
Spoof movies have been dead since before Leslie Nielsen was, yet this Naked Gun follows the rules set out by Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker, and manages to mimic the original movie's send-up of film noir and police procedurals to great success.
Neeson is the new Nielson, playing Frank Drebin Jr, an equally inept cop, but with a harder edge than his old man. Recently widowed and constantly pushing the limits, Drebin Jr is pulled off a major bank robbery investigation and set loose on what seems to be a simple road accident. Naturally, it leads to a plot that puts the whole world at stake, and it's up to Drebin Jr to stop it.
In his role as the inexplicably Irish son of Drebin Sr, Neeson plays the lead role straighter than Nielsen ever did. There's minimal mugging for the camera and few funny faces. Neeson bends the comedy to his will as he rolls from scowl to confusion and back again, and it's great. Similar to Nielsen's breakout as a comedic star in Airplane! (AKA Flying High!), this has the potential to give Neeson yet another late-career reinvention, much like how Taken turned him into the current king of gritty B-grade actioners.
Equally effective is Anderson as love interest Beth Davenport. She gets some great moments - scat singing at a jazz club, for one - and nails it. Another actor experiencing a career reignition, The Naked Gun taps previously ignored strengths in Anderson.
The film is continuously hilarious and inventive - a mid-film diversion involving a snowman is a prime example of the bold silliness on offer. Perhaps the biggest update is some of the more meta moments, the best of which involves Drebin Jr paying his respects to his late father, and acknowledging he wants "to be just like (him), but at the same time be completely different and original". A follow-up fourth-wall gag involving OJ Simpson is also great.
The only downside is the film pushes the insanity further than the original - arguably too far by film's end. There's an oddly grounded quality to the 1988 Naked Gun that vanishes right from the get-go in this version.
But for every joke that falls flat, there are half a dozen ready to go to pick up the slack. Don't expect The Naked Gun to revive the spoof, but it does the legacy of ZAZ and Leslie Nielsen proud.
