A pure studio comedy feels like a cinematic rarity these days. For some reason a genre that no longer feels as if it has confidence in the bigger marketplace that is inside a multiplex, The Naked Gun – the third sequel in the (once again) long running franchise that was birthed nearly 40 years ago – is proof of how effective comedy can be.
And not just comedy in the general sense, but broad, silly, spoof-ridden comedy that writer/director Akiva Schaffer (who has such underrated irreverence as Hot Rod and Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping to his resume) and co-screenwriters Dan Gregor and Doug Man (TV’s Crazy Ex Girlfriend) clearly understand with such intricacy – showcasing an awareness that to be this dumb, you have to be incredibly smart.
Taking aim predominantly at the police drama structure of other filmic projects (including the previous Naked Gun entries), Schaffer’s laugh-a-minute effort introduces itself in a manner that immediately clues audiences in that the film’s 85 minute running time will hardly let up when it comes to executing (and milking) a good gag; for starters, the bank robbery that opens the film focuses on a MacGuffin that’s literally called a “plot device.”
Frank Drebin Jr. (Liam Neeson) is the LAPD Police Squad lieutenant who initially thwarts said bank robbery, doing so by disguising himself as a lollipop-sucking school girl and, with that distraction, taking the hoard of bank robbers out singlehandedly. Unfortunately, the bank robbery was a mere distraction for the intended heist of the aforementioned plot device, or a P.L.O.T. Device, a Primordial Law of Toughness Device, that wealthy tech expert Richard Crane (Danny Huston) intends to initiate in his bid to revert humans to their barbarian nature, culling the population for his fellow billionaires, who will be safely insulated in a bunker.
Just go with it.
Like the action brethren The Naked Gun takes joy in riffing on (namely Mission: Impossible, which gets a particularly enjoyable spoof in one particular scene), the film runs on the standard narrative that Frank needs to stop Crane before it’s too late for humankind. And whilst the overall structure is hardly original, it’s the comedy that Schaffer and co. introduce throughout that keeps the film bombastically entertaining. Hell, there’s even jokes we can see coming that still are ultimately successful because everyone on hand is so committed to the cause of playing the ridiculousness so earnestly straight.
And it’s in Neeson’s straight-man routine where so much of The Naked Gun finds its success. Not the most obvious choice on first glance – Ed Helms was originally circling the role when the project first earned traction over a decade ago – Neeson’s comedic ventures have been few and far between (though if you’ve seen Ted 2 or A Million Ways to Die in the West, you’ll know he’s quite competent in the genre), but it’s both his clear lack of vanity and reputation amongst more serious fare that only fuels his comedic fire. Ironically, he has more in common with original Naked Gun star Leslie Nielsen than many might suspect. Whilst Nielsen became known for the series and the subsequent spoof films he headlined in the years after – Spy Hard, Dracula: Dead and Loving It, Wrongfully Accused – he had an original standing as a dramatic actor, which only furthered his success as a deadpan performer within the comedy genre.
Huston, like Neeson, doesn’t have the most extensive comedic experience, but he knows how to play a villain, and Crane is an archetype to a tee, which allows the actor to have an awful lot of fun in hamming up the possibilities that come with someone bent on world domination; though his best moment may be when he’s truly taken aback at being wounded in combat and aghast at how “the soft part of his belly” hurts after being punched. And then, of course, is the girl, and Pamela Anderson, on a joyous late-career renaissance, leans into her bubbly blonde sensibilities as the could-be-damsel-in-distress-or-is-she-a-femme-fatale Beth Davenport, who seeks out Drebin’s help in solving the murder case of her husband, only to fall in love with him; and when I say that you are truly unprepared for their romance story montage moment, it’s no exaggeration. All I’ll say is there’s a snowman involved.
In the grand tradition of the Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker films (which also include such titles as Airplane! and Top Secret!), The Naked Gun delights in its absurdism, where no joke is ever too big or too outlandish. It isn’t always the easiest genre to land successfully, but Schaffer, more often than not, sticks such. It fires on all cylinders so ferociously out of the gate that it does start to lose a little steam toward the end, but never enough that it stalls on delivery, maintaining an honest sense of effective slapstick humour that reminds us of how the genre needs to pivot away from a streaming shelf-life and return to the communal temperament of the cinema.
FOUR STARS (OUT OF FIVE)
The Naked Gun is now screening in Australian theatres.
