The Naked Gun

Director: Akiva Schaffer

It’s been 30 years but Police Squad is back, with the son of Frank Drebin, Frank Drebin Jr. (Liam Neeson) now in the fold. When Drebin foils a bank robbery, and is asked to investigate a deadly car crash it leads him to the sister of the crash victim, Beth Davenport (Pamela Anderson), and a link between the robbery and the crash. This sets Drebin and his partner Ed Hocken Jr. (Paul Walter Hauser) on an investigation of the link. This takes them into the world of Richard Cane (Danny Huston) and his shady group of associates and a plot to, of course, take over the world!

I’m a fan of spoof films. The original Naked Guns and later iterations such as Scary Movie and Austin Powers. All examples of a knowing, silliness that works for me. So I came into The Naked Gun reboot with a level of optimism, which was, to a degree, if not totally, misplaced.

There were certainly things that appealed, nice nods back to the original, silly word play “take a seat, no thank you I have plenty at home” and an array of sight gags.

But for all of that, it didn’t quite work. It raised a few chuckles, rather than laughs and even at under 90 minutes it also felt like it dragged. And while it was entertaining to see Neeson bring Drebin to the screen. It just never feels like a natural fit.

What does work is the show stealing performance from Pamela Anderson, who is perfect as the sister wanting to solve her brother’s death. She’s funny, with perfect timing and her chemistry with Neeson is the highlight of the film.

But that aside, I did leave this thinking more about just how good Leslie Nielsen was.

The sight gags, one liners, word play and silliness are all there. As is a show stealing performance from Pamela Anderson. But as a fan of spoof films, this Naked Gun reboot just didn’t quite do it for me. It’s sporadically humourous rather than funny and even at sub 90 minutes, it felt like it was stretching its welcome. Perhaps the big issue was Liam Neeson who never feels like the right fit and left me thinking just how good Leslie Nielsen was in these films.