Frank Drebin is back. Only it’s not Frank Drebin. And it’s not Leslie Nielsen.
In this installment of “The Naked Gun” franchise, released more than three decades after the third movie from the original trilogy, Liam Neeson stars as Lt. Frank Drebin Jr. The son of the Police Squad legend, Drebin Jr. has followed in his father’s footsteps, becoming a detective himself.
The film picks up with Drebin Jr. investigating the mysterious death of a man at the behest of his sister, Beth (Pamela Anderson). Drebin Jr., discovering a link between the death and a bank heist, begins digging, and it puts him on a collision course with a tech company CEO with a major scheme.
Writers Dan Gregor, Doug Mand and Akiva Schaffer, the latter of which also directed, understood the assignment here. Like a good “Naked Gun” movie should, it makes a mockery of anything and everything in the world that revolves around the Police Squad detective. The jokes come a mile-a-minute, some working better than others, but the majority get laughs.
It’s a film that doesn’t take itself seriously at all, and it does so like previous installments in the series did, by having faux seriousness. This is a big case for Police Squad, Drebin is hellbent on solving the case, Beth has a righteous motivation to uncover what happened to her brother, and there’s a real threat to the public.
The level of gravity attributed to everything in the film, while having so many gags around every corner, just heightens the absurdity, to the film’s benefit. Even the simple play on word-style jokes, such as one involving a sparkler, are good.
In all honesty, not all of the jokes in “The Naked Gun” work, and the film loses some steam in the third act. It sort of feels like a lot of the stronger stuff in the movie was up front. That’s not to say there’s not hilarity in the last half hour, it’s just a bit weaker than what came before.
What does really help the movie is Liam Neeson. While it’s hard to replace Leslie Nielsen, Neeson does well giving his own spin. Essentially, it’s like watching one of Neeson’s action characters dropped into a comedy world, and it works well enough. He properly keeps his stoic persona, deadpanning for a lot of gags, but adds a layer where it feels like he’s in on the joke.
Pamela Anderson is solid in the picture, too. It’s been nice to see her back in films, with this and “The Last Showgirl,” and she dials up the absurdity with her character. It’s just surprising the film didn’t try to put any self-referential comedy in with either Neeson or Anderson. It felt like a missed opportunity to have something be a play on “Baywatch,” “Star Wars” or “Taken.”
Paul Walter Hauser is also really fun on screen, too, as Drebin’s right-hand partner. He sort of is striking a balance between being more aware of Drebin’s screw-ups, while still doing dumb things himself. I also for the most part liked Danny Huston as the antagonist, but I wish the movie played more into just how often he plays a villain.
“The Naked Gun” is quite the fun time at the theater. Maybe it doesn’t quite reach the comedic heights of its predecessors, but it still is plenty funny. It’s a solid new take and with plenty of laughs to be had. 3.85 out of 5.
Matthew Liedke on Film 
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