Another day, another reboot? Well, yes but not so fast! With The Naked Gun, director Akiva Schaffer asks the bold question: what if a reboot was good?
Schaffer is one third of the minds behind The Lonely Island along with Jorma Taccone and Andy Samberg. Despite their popularity thanks to their SNL Digital Shorts, the trio’s two films Hot Rod and Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, failed to resonate with audiences at the box office. Both films have been rightfully re-evaluated as comedic gems since then, but the memory remains as James Hetfield would say. Hopefully, audiences have learned their lesson not to sleep on a Schaffer joint, particularly when he’s taken on a franchise ripe for a return.
Schaffer delivers a solid successor to the original series; one that, hopefully, heralds a new era of the Naked Gun franchise. While there’s room for improvement, The Naked Gun hits all its marks in a reboot worthy of its legacy and its summer release. With graceful nods to its beloved past, Schaffer avoids relying on rehashed jokes and references to skillfully update the noir-tinged procedural parody for an installment that stands on its own.
These days we know Liam Neeson is funny. While it’s not the first thing that comes to mind for Neeson, that’s thanks to his ever-evolving career that finds new ways for Hollywood to leverage or subvert over fifty years worth of performances. The Naked Gun plays off the actor’s most recent revival as a star of low to mid-budget action thrillers like Non-Stop, The Grey, and his Taken trilogy.
Schaffer exploits our latest perception of Neeson as an old, capable bad ass to establish the dry element of Frank Drebin Jr. as the no nonsense detective in the spirit of Leslie Nielsen, the original Frank Drebin. While not a dramatic star to the level of Neeson’s notoriety, Nielsen’s early work as a dramatic actor paved the way to his reinvention in the Zucker Brothers/Jim Abrams comedy Airplane!, which led them to cast Nielsen as the lead in the short-lived Police Squad television show and its feature-length film adaptations.
While Neeson has taken on a similar degree of hard comedy in A Million Ways to Die in the West (directed by Family Guy-guy Seth MacFarlane, who is also a producer on The Naked Gun), he doesn’t feel as comfortable in the police loafers as Nielsen. Along with the deadpan delivery, Nielsen was able to seamlessly transition from serious and menacing to lost and oblivious within a few lines. There are moments when Nielsen’s Drebin realizes he’s in the wrong and moves to skate past it, while Neeson's actions are never second-guessed. While Nielsen had these extra comedic gears at his disposal, there’s no reason to believe you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.
Neeson thoroughly understands his assignment and brings his gravitas to the absurd world. At this point, Neeson has indulged in every action cliche at least twice, so it’s with alacrity that he’s able to do something like intimidate a suspect by warning him of the consequences. The image of his sneer alone is worth millions but I can’t help but feel the anger Neeson puts into his performance seems slightly miscalibrated. His action persona works best when he is cool, calm, and collected. When Neeson delivers his famous “particular set of skills” monologue to his daughter’s captor, he’s more Qui-Gon Jin than Darkman. This more serene intimidation is how he played his cameo on the sitcom Life’s Too Short, possibly his best comedic performance. Something Pamela Anderson offers in her role as Beth Davenport.
Anderson is the standout of the picture. Like her co-star (and boyfriend), Anderson plays off her on-screen persona as the buxom vixen of Baywatch and Barb Wire. She’s responsible for the comedic performance of the picture when she jumps on stage at a nightclub to create a distraction by jazz scatting to Danny Huston’s tech billionaire villain. CCH Pounder is perfect casting as the Police Squad’s hot-headed chief and as is Paul Walter Hauser as Drebin’s partner Ed; though if there is a sequel (and I sincerely hope there will be many) more Ed please!
Comedies have all but been banished from multiplexes, receding to the ambiguous world of streaming. But if audiences show up like they did for One of Them Days earlier this year, the studios will hopefully take the hint that comedy works best at a theater and if the movie is actually funny, people will show up.
