Suspenseful music plays over the opening studio logos. We emerge from the black void to see criminals running amok in a bank. They’ve taken hostages, freezing the police in their tracks. This has now become a job for someone with a particular set of skills with a name like Ethan Hunt, Jason Bourne, or John McClane.
Unfortunately, all those heroes were busy, which means it’s up to the next available man to save the day. That would be Frank Drebin Jr. (Liam Neeson), a cop who doesn’t allow anything to stop him from upholding the law.
Donning a disguise that makes his 70-year-old body appear to be that of an elementary schoolgirl, Drebin Jr. sneaks his way into the bank and defeats all the bad guys.
The leader gets away with the P.L.O.T. Device from the vault, which acts as the key to a nefarious scheme by tech billionaire Richard Cane (Danny Huston) to make the world’s population go feral and kill one another, leaving the wealthy elite to rule with an iron fist.
Accusing the screenwriters of stealing the exact plot of “Kingsman: The Secret Service” would be an act of futility. “The Naked Gun” franchise (also known as “Police Squad!”) is famous for liberally borrowing well-worn tropes and turning them on their head to reveal the absurdity that we regularly buy into.
This reboot/legacy sequel comes with the benefit of time and a shifting media landscape. Theatrically released studio comedies have been a rapidly dying breed, replaced with streaming exclusives, quippy superhero films and comedies that try to have their cake and eat it, too, almost as if they’re embarrassed to tell a joke that doesn’t add to the plot or have a skewering reference to a piece of pop culture.
“The Naked Gun” does not attempt to be a “smart” comedy, with co-writer/director Akiva Schaffer swinging the pendulum fully back to the days of slapstick, sight gags and wordplay.
In quick succession, we watch as the police captain posts the spring musical cast list on the corkboard, two little girls are brought in for questioning over an illegal lemonade stand, and cold cases are pulled out of the freezer.
Frank and his partner Ed Hocken Jr. (Paul Walter Hauser) are handed a cup of coffee in each scene, always throwing it away after just one sip. One of Crane’s henchmen spies on Frank and his femme fatale Beth Davenport (Pamela Anderson) through a window, the drawn curtains creating several misconstrued sexual scenarios involving an uncooked turkey and Frank’s pet dog.
I’m probably the only person who saw the dreadful 2023 film “Marlowe” on its opening weekend (on Valentine’s Day, no less, proving that I don’t love myself). That film also starred Neeson and Huston in an identical hero-villain relationship, with the over-serious approach and poor execution inadvertently making the whole thing feel like a parody. Both of those stars get to have much more fun on their own terms this time around, making complete fools of themselves by poking fun at their tough guy images.
Frank does more harm than good in his quest for justice, repeatedly running over cyclists and eating too many chili cheese dogs for breakfast. Crane is like all the tech billionaires we wish would just take their money and go away forever. Anderson shows off her long-hidden comedic sensibilities, perfectly matching the goofiness.
It’s almost back-to-school season, so let’s do a quick math equation. We’ve got a 90-minute runtime, a joke every 30 seconds, and a 60% hit rate. That math means I laughed about 100 times throughout the film, and just about as much as I was writing this review.
A deal like that sounds too good to be true. But I assure you it’s real, and it’s much better when shared with everyone at the theater.
Paramount Pictures will release “The Naked Gun” in theaters nationwide on Aug. 1.
Eden Prairie resident Hunter Friesen is a film critic who owns and operates The Cinema Dispatch, a website where he writes reviews, essays, and everything in between. He currently serves as the president of the Minnesota Film Critics Association and travels the globe covering film festivals both big and small. To view his entire body of work, you can visit his website and Instagram.
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