Director: Akiva Schaffer
Writers: Dan Gregor, Doug Mand, Akiva Schaffer
Stars: Liam Neeson, Pamela Anderson, Paul Walter Hauser
Synopsis: Only one man has the particular set of skills… to lead Police Squad and save the world!
It’s been a while since Liam Neeson gave a damn. While I respect the hustle of collecting one easy paycheck after another, essentially becoming this generation’s Charles Bronson when he collaborated with The Cannon Group, the films he made were of extremely poor quality. The unfortunate box office hit of the awful (yes, I said it) Taken has resulted in Neeson being typecast in the “particular set of skills” genre, with the only pictures of note he has made within that time being his four collaborations with Jaume Collet-Serra. The rest of it can be thrown in the trash (with the exception of Martin Scorsese’s Silence, since it isn’t part of that canon).
After giving up watching his last few efforts that likely treaded in the same bland screenplays as Taken, I wondered when we would see the film that will (hopefully) free the 73-year-old Irish actor from the shackles he has sadly been stuck in since Taken. I never, in a million years, expected that the film to bring him back to the glory days of his best acting performances – in Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List, Neil Jordan’s Michael Collins or Michael Caton-Jones’ Rob Roy – would be a reboot of David Zucker, Jim Abrahams and Jerry Zucker’s The Naked Gun, which is, in my opinion, the pinnacle of comedy.
What ZAZ pioneered has sadly not been replicated in an era that seems to be ashamed to make comedies for the big screen, which is incredibly stupid, because why would you not make a breezy time at the movies for people to turn their brains off and simply have the time of their lives in under ninety minutes? That’s what was so brilliant about all three Naked Gun movies (in turn based on the incredible TV series Police Squad!): they never overstayed their welcome and packed enough laughs for audiences to have an entire day’s worth of fun. Writer/director Akiva Schaffer and co-writers Dan Gregor and Doug Mand approach their reboot of The Naked Gun in that same vein: the film is under 90 minutes, and the laughs come every minute.
Whether or not the film would work was entirely dependent upon its understanding of why ZAZ’s comedy was so good (“was” because their last efforts were complete garbage). At the pinnacle of their career, the trio was able to make us laugh about anything through their genius associations, wordplays, and sight gags. When Leslie Nielsen’s Frank Drebin offered a smoke to a suspect and said, “Cigarette?” they would usually reply with a variation of “Yes, it is” or “Yes, I know.”
Even better, while in an interrogation, if a character said, “Let’s say you did go to the movies,” the suspect would reply, “Okay,” and repeat “You did go to the movies” in unison with everyone else. That’s the level of stupid we’re dealing with here, and what Schaffer captures in his 85-minute fourth installment, now with Liam Neeson as Frank Drebin Jr, who continues his father’s work within Police Squad. The plot is unimportant, and the director knows it too, by having Kevin Durand’s Sig Gustafson steal a thingamajig at the top of the movie that’s aptly named “P.L.O.T. Device.”
In a film like this, nobody cares about the plot or its leaps in logic. It’s a pure farce from beginning to end, and only cynics will actively scrutinize something that doesn’t need to be examined, because everything is a spoof! Visually, it’s a sight gag festival. Verbally, it’s a pun festival. There are so many mile-a-minute jokes that one can watch the entire thing on mute and have an amazing time, while another can only listen to the soundtrack and laugh their socks off. The sad part is that, because of how funny The Naked Gun is, you forget the joke you were laughing about a few minutes ago, because the one you’re laughing at now is even funnier. For instance, when Drebin interrogates Beth Davenport (Pamela Anderson) about the disappearance of her brother, she tells him she graduated from school in Los Angeles.
Drebin then replies, “UCLA?” Beth, “I see it every day.” This is pure ZAZ, captured at its most potent essence, and the contagious laughter emanating from the audience is enough to cure the woes of this world. Simply put (and this is a sentence I avoid to use), it’s the movie the world needs right now, one so hilarious it’s bound to loosen up the cynics and make us realize that life is beautiful if we just have a laugh. And Liam Neeson is perfect. It’s the best performance he’s given since…*check notes*…Qui Gon-Jinn in Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace. Whatever you think about that movie, he was arguably the best part.
The thing is, Neeson, much like Leslie Nielsen at the time Airplane! was released, is an underrated comedic talent. But he’s been stuck in a rut of mediocrity for the better part of seventeen years. He never could show the world that he could make us laugh until today. His sense of comedic timing is just as good as Nielsen’s, although he has a much different “particular set of skills” to play with than when Nielsen first portrayed Frank Drebin. Maybe that’s the advantage he had for portraying essentially variants of Bryan Mills for the past seventeen years – he is able to distill them inside a riotously deadpan turn to not only breathe new life into the iconic presence of Frank Drebin, but also for his career.
Like I said at the top of this review, it’s been a while since Neeson gave a damn. And all that was needed for him to deliver what will likely be remembered as one of the finest roles of his career was a good screenplay, and one that allows the actor to let loose and have fun, either alone in his nonsensical soliloquies (worthy of Leslie Nielsen) or through the incredible chemistry he shares with Pamela Anderson, who equally steals the show. She, like Priscilla Presley in the original series, understands what’s needed for her character to be of equal measure to Neeson attempting to free himself from the “tough guy” antics that have defined his mid and now late-stage career.
Perhaps the villain, played by Danny Huston, isn’t up to snuff, but when Schaffer replaces the name of the “crypto.com arena” with “ponzi-scheme.com arena” in its climax, where the antagonist’s plan is set in motion, it doesn’t matter. The plot doesn’t matter. It’s all about the jokes. Nothing more, nothing less. That’s what ZAZ did when they crafted Police Squad! and the subsequent Naked Gun installments, and that’s exactly what Schaffer is doing here. And unless you’re the most heartless person in the universe, there’s no way you won’t find enjoyment in this much-needed breath of fresh air for a genre that has been sadly shunned by Hollywood studio executives who have no idea what they’re doing.
The timing is perfect to stick it to ‘em and see this masterpiece in droves. Comedy needs it, and the world needs it, too.
