It couldn’t come at a better time, as audiences seem ready to trade outrage for joy.
It’s fitting — poetic, even — that just days after CBS canceled The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, the hottest film in America is another Paramount property: a reboot of the Naked Gun series. What began as Police Squad! (a short-lived TV send-up of police procedurals) eventually spawned one of the most beloved spoof franchises of all time. Now, over three decades later, it’s back with a fresh coat of paint — and the same fearless commitment to absurdity.
The new comedy features the kinds of jokes that, not long ago, might’ve inspired an MSNBC monologue titled “We Need to Talk About Frank Drebin,” followed by a Nikole Hannah-Jones essay on “The White Roots of American Humor.” There’s a Bill Cosby drink zinger, police-violence puns, and enough phallic innuendo to send you on a one-way trip to the HR electric chair. The contrast with the once-amusing Colbert offers the clearest sign yet that the culture might just be pivoting from sanctimony back to levity.
Directed by Lonely Island alum Akiva Schaffer, The Naked Gun doesn’t try to elevate the genre. It just wants to make you laugh — and it succeeds, easily. Clocking in at a lean 85 minutes, the film is a firehose barrage of wordplay, slapstick, double entendres, and body humor. At a time when most comedies feel like focus-grouped oatmeal — bland, beige, and forgettable — this one resists the jejune instincts of its peers and actually commits to the bit.
Liam Neeson plays Frank Drebin Jr., son of the late, legendary Frank Sr., and the joke isn’t that he’s funny — it’s that he thinks he’s Sam Spade. Unlike Leslie Nielsen, whose very face was a comic instrument, Neeson plays it straight. He simply lets the absurdity of his surroundings do the work — and that’s exactly why it lands. The story itself is paper-thin, little more than a coat hanger for the film’s nonstop barrage of gags, but that’s part of the design. Watching Neeson tear through L.A. traffic — and his trousers — after one too many chili dogs is like watching Bogie stumble onto the set of Airplane!
That tycoon, Richard Cane — an EV mogul who’s fluent in corporate pablum and fond of UFC-style cameos — is played to smarmy perfection by Danny Huston. It’s an inspired bit of casting, channeling equal parts Elon Musk and Hugo Drax. Cane plans to unleash a mind-warping device called the “P.L.O.T. Device,” plunging civilization into chaos before retreating to a climate-proof bunker with his fellow elites to ride out the madness and, presumably, repopulate the earth with their LinkedIn connections.
The film’s surprise MVP is Pamela Anderson, now in full comeback mode. As Beth Davenport, a noir-tinged mystery novelist and love interest, she blends camp and sincerity with ease. At 58, the former Baywatch babe still knows how to steal a scene — the guys at the office can’t stop gawking, and at one point, a snowman gets so handsy you half-expect him to end up on some kind of registry. She’s neither channeling Stifler’s mom nor merely riffing on Priscilla Presley’s blueprint from the original films. Anderson makes the role her own — at one point, she even scat-sings. Her chemistry with Neeson genuinely clicks. In fact, you could even say it’s endearing.
One of the film’s great strengths is how well-written and tightly edited it is. Schaffer and co-writers Dan Gregor and Doug Mand understand rhythm — there’s no dead air, no pointless detours. The story hums, the pace never lags, and when a joke doesn’t land, there’s another one 52 seconds later to finish the job.
Most of the antics are proudly puerile — in the best way — but every so often, the film tiptoes up to the line of political correctness just to give it a flick. That’s part of the charm. It’s a comedy with a little backbone, taking jabs at tech bros and modern racial sensitivities without clearing it with Legal first. There’s no studio disclaimer that “the views of Frank Drebin Jr. do not reflect those of the parent company,” no winking apology — just impertinent, unapologetic jokes.
Is it as iconic as the 1988 original? Probably not. There’s no Enrico Pallazzo moment that leaves you doubled over, clutching your sides. But it’s one of the funniest studio comedies in years — and it couldn’t come at a better time, as audiences seem ready to trade outrage for joy.
Go see it. Bring a friend — and as Drebin says, take a chair. The Naked Gun is a throwback to when laughter, not clapter, was the point.
