Akiva Schaffer’s reboot of The Naked Gun delivers a barrage of stupid jokes, deployed in smart ways
Courtesy Paramount Pictures
It’s a real shame studios don’t invest in comedies as much anymore, especially right now, when so many of us could benefit from a night out where we get to enjoy ourselves and laugh at a bunch of dumb jokes.
Most of the blame for this obviously lies at the feet of execs who have a limited (and often flawed, short-sighted) understanding of what audiences actually want. Some of it, however, lies with a lack of creativity in comedy filmmaking that overlooks its potential for visual gags (check out this excellent “Every Frame a Painting” video essay to see what I mean). We don’t need reasons to watch a funny movie; we have plenty. What we need, increasingly, are reasons to watch comedies on a big screen, not just for the communal experience, but because they should be seen that way.
Akiva Schaffer, one-third of The Lonely Island and the director of such modern classics as Hot Rod, MacGruber, Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping and Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers, is perhaps making the best case right now for big-screen visual comedy as a filmmaker. Fans of the aforementioned films are very aware that you don’t want to look away when you’re watching Schaffer’s movies, because there’s a good chance you’ll miss a cutaway gag, a genre homage, or something that grabs your attention and makes you bark out a laugh.
Case in point: Schaffer’s The Naked Gun reboot, which takes the classic gag-a-second franchise fronted by Leslie Nielsen and juices it up for a new audience.
The jokes may be dumb, but dammit, they’re funny and they encompass everything from props to action sequences to performances.
This is a comedy you want to see with a lot of people, on a big screen, where you can catch every little joke.
Liam Neeson cashes in on his late-career action stardom as Frank Drebin Jr., son of Nielsen’s Frank Drebin. Frank’s partner Ed Hocken Jr. (Paul Walter Hauser) is likewise taking over his dad’s mantle at the storied Police Squad. After Frank gets sidelined by beleaguered Chief Davis (CCH Pounder) for overdoing it during a bank robbery, he gets caught up in the mystery of a software engineer killed in an electric car crash. The man’s sister, Beth Davenport (Pamela Anderson) is sure it was murder. The man’s boss, billionaire manosphere inventor Richard Cane (Danny Huston) is quick to call it a suicide. Is Cane’s stupid electric car tied to the bank robbery? Does the conspiracy go all the way to the top? More importantly, does it matter?
Neeson and Anderson are perfectly cast in their roles, with Neeson poking fun at the stoic, gravel-voiced persona he’s been riding since Taken, and Anderson seemingly delighted that she can lean into a femme fatale role while still having a good time. A scene in a nightclub where she distracts Cane with some goofy scat-singing is made all the greater by the fact that Anderson can actually scat and used her talent live on the set.
Most importantly, though, are the jokes, which come fast and hard from every direction. There’s a coffee cup gag that feels like an extended riff on Popstar’s surreal running water bottle joke. Neeson and Huston have a giggle-inducing showdown over their shared appreciation of The Black-Eyed Peas and the un-PC original lyrics of “Let’s Get it Started.”
At one point, Neeson and Anderson go full-on Too Many Cooks over the closing credits. You can’t get up at any point to go to the bathroom because there’s a genuine likelihood you’ll miss something great, but considering the movie is 85 minutes with credits, that shouldn’t be too much of an issue.
The world is an unpleasant place right now, and Schaffer has given us a real gift in a movie that satirizes the right stuff, while also providing an opportunity to let down your guard and laugh at some really stupid stuff, executed with pinpoint precision. You need this movie more than you think you do. Go see it and have a good time.
