'The Naked Gun' is the kind of stupid we all need right now
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New York Times
a minute ago
- New York Times
‘The Naked Gun' Review: A Chip Off the Old Blockhead
Frank Drebin Jr., the blissfully, unselfconsciously silly hero played by Liam Neeson in 'The Naked Gun,' has a genius for disaster. Frank is a detective in Los Angeles, where he fights crime and bends the law, intentionally and not. With his loose ties and weary mien, he resembles a cop right out of central casting, like one of those precinct old-timers who crack cynical in a television police procedural. If Frank seems especially suited for the assignment it's because he's a chip off the old blockhead, and is following — with elaborate pratfalls and many, many nonsensical misunderstandings — his father's bumbling, stumbling example. The original blockhead, of course, was Frank Drebin Sr., played to doltish perfection by Leslie Nielsen in a trilogy that started with 'The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!' (1988). A spinoff of a short-lived TV series, 'Police Squad!' (1982), the movies wrung laughs from the gulf between their hero's deadpan self-seriousness and his and the world's wholesale absurdity. At one point in the first film, Frank goes undercover as a baseball umpire and flamboyantly calls strikes while Reggie Jackson threatens to kill Queen Elizabeth and a villainous Ricardo Montalban bites down on a severed human finger tucked in a hot dog bun. The new movie largely adheres to the formula created by the wisenheimers (Jerry Zucker, Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, Pat Proft) behind the first 'Naked Gun.' As before, the new movie is fronted by a performer better known for clenched-jaw sobriety than slipping on banana peels. Nielsen, among other roles, played the doomed captain in 'The Poseidon Adventure.' Neeson has a tonier, more diverse résumé and the peer recognition to go with it, having earned an Oscar nod for his title role in 'Schindler's List.' Beginning with 'Taken' (2009), though, he has also become a fixture in the kind of violent, elaborately plotted thrillers that go so over the top they verge on, and at times regress into, unwitting self-parody. The story here is certainly the least of it and involves Frank's getting in and out of trouble as well as in and out of his car amid goofy word play and set pieces, like an early bank robbery that turns into a slapstick free-for-all. He's soon making eyes at the resident slinkstress (a winning Pamela Anderson), crossing paths with a power-grubbing tech villain (Danny Huston, spot on) and engaging in much foolishness at the precinct and elsewhere. CCH Pounder shows up as Frank's beleaguered boss while Paul Walter Hauser plays his work bestie. There are nods to the earlier movies, including an unfunny bit about O.J. Simpson, a fixture in the trilogy, and some digs at police brutality that are almost offensively toothless. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
New York Times
a minute ago
- New York Times
Liam Neeson's Newest Skill: Making You Giggle
There's a line from Anthony Hopkins that Liam Neeson likes to share. Any time Neeson asks him how he's doing, Hopkins tells him, 'Great. I haven't been found out yet.' At 73, Neeson feels like he hasn't been found out yet either. Once dubbed the heir apparent to Sean Connery's sweeping romantic grandeur, Neeson, with his broad trajectory and catalog of more than 100 Hollywood films, is arguably as interesting as any actor today. He can claim awards bait with 'Schindler's List' and 'Michael Collins,' franchise blockbusters with 'Star Wars Episode I — The Phantom Menace' and 'Batman Begins' and fan favorites with 'Love Actually' and 'The Lego Movie.' And that's before you consider the long list of action-film ass-kickers this Oscar- and Tony-nominated star has played, which established his identity for a generation of fans. That's largely thanks to the surprising success of the 'Taken' franchise, built around Neeson as a father with a very particular set of skills who will find you and kill you if you kidnap his daughter. It's been a career that's kept him and his viewers guessing at what might come next. 'I'm honestly not trying to change,' he said of all the changes. 'It wasn't deliberate, but there's been a lot of this for me.' Neeson says this inside the third-floor screening room at Paramount's building in Times Square on a humid Tuesday afternoon in July. If you haven't figured out why you can't escape his face lately, it's part of his next change: He is starring in 'The Naked Gun,' the reboot of the crime-spoof comedy franchise from the '80s and '90s. The film will serve as a test for whether the brand of straight-man intensity that made Neeson an action-film favorite can translate to the level of laughs produced by Leslie Nielsen, his predecessor in the trilogy. (Neeson is playing Nielsen's son, Frank Drebin Jr., in the film, which also stars Pamela Anderson and Paul Walter Hauser.) 'Liam is probably the only actor alive who in the 21st century could play Frank Drebin,' Seth MacFarlane, producer of 'The Naked Gun,' said, noting that Neeson is a throwback to performers like Nielsen, Robert Mitchum and Gregory Peck. 'These were people who all had that gravitas that when you had them saying absurd things, it was just priceless since there was so much weight to what they were saying. We don't make those kinds of actors in Hollywood anymore.' Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Yahoo
32 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Joely Richardson Looks Back at Rare Photos of Late Sister Natasha Richardson
Joely Richardson Looks Back at Rare Photos of Late Sister Natasha Richardson originally appeared on Parade. Joely Richardson is looking back on sweet memories with her late sister, Natasha Richardson. But she's also savoring the recent ones with her beloved sister's sons, Micheál and Daniel Neeson. The Nip/Tuck star, 60, took to Instagram on Monday to share a series of photos celebrating her nephews throughout their lives, as well as her sister, who passed away at age 45 in 2009 after a ski accident. "Happy June Birthdays to All blowing out a candle this month ( such a lovely, simple tradition right?). Someone I love and adore to the moon and back is a midsummer sprite," Richardson wrote. "Micheal to go from seeing you in my sister Natasha's arms at a few days old, to you all grown up buying your aunt lunch in NY recently, and everything in between. What a pleasure it is, to walk together x #birthdays#sprite#nephews#candles." In the first photo, Joely snuggles up to Daniel Neeson, one of two of Natasha's sons with husband Liam Neeson. That's followed by several other sweet new and old photos of Joely with her nephews, as well as a poignant throwback photo of Natasha holding her son, Micheál, as a very young infant. Standing in a swimming pool with her wavy blonde hair tied back, it's clear the baby had just made his debut in the world. 🎬 SIGN UP for Parade's Daily newsletter to get the latest pop culture news & celebrity interviews delivered right to your inbox 🎬 Back in May, Joely shared a message on Instagram from their mother, Vanessa Redgrave, in honor of what would have been Natasha's 62nd birthday. "Today would have been my sister Tasha's birthday. I asked my Ma if she'd like to say anything. This is what she dictated to me," Richardson shared. "'We were in Greece. We sat drinking our coffees in Constitution Square. Tony ( my late father) said if the baby was a boy we should call him Tom. I said if she was a girl I would like her to be called Natasha after Tolstoy 's 'War and Peace'. Our Natasha, as yes she was a girl, came swimming out of my womb ready for anything. I can't believe that she isn't swimming somewhere now, in one of the pools or seas we explored. I will never be reconciled to her dying in the snow, and I'm sure that every mother who has lost a child will have that pain always,'" Redgrave Richardson Looks Back at Rare Photos of Late Sister Natasha Richardson first appeared on Parade on Jul 1, 2025 This story was originally reported by Parade on Jul 1, 2025, where it first appeared. Solve the daily Crossword
