Naked Gun review — Liam Neeson and Pamela Anderson are irresistible

Times

3 days ago

When Liam Neeson was announced as the star of this reboot of the slapstick classic, I couldn't help thinking of the Ricky Gervais sitcom Life's Too Short. In one episode Neeson, playing himself, comes to the office of Gervais, also playing himself, and says, 'I'm thinking of doing some comedy. I'm a funny guy, aren't I?' The joke then was that Neeson definitely wasn't funny; the worry before The Naked Gun came out was that the joke might be right. His career is full of tough guys and noble heroes, but not stuffed with rib-tickling mirth merchants.
What a joy to report, then, that Neeson really is funny. Taking over from Leslie Nielsen, he plays Frank Drebin Jr, the son of the character Nielsen played in the Police Squad! series and three Naked Gun films. It really works, and not just because the two men have the same initials. Like Nielsen, who died in 2010, Neeson has comic timing, presence — even spoof cops need to look and sound like cops — and chemistry with his femme fatale, Beth (a game Pamela Anderson). Most importantly he has the ability to keep a straight face through an absolute cavalcade of sight gags, groan-worthy puns and weapons-grade buffonery.
The volume of jokes was a hallmark of the original films and the director of this one, Akiva Schaffer, has very much stuck to that template. Not all of them stick but a good proportion do, and you're gradually worn down by the sheer weight of silliness until resistance is useless. 'I guess you can't fight City Hall,' Drebin says. 'No, it's a building,' a colleague replies. We get an eked-out food poisoning sequence ('I'm gonna ruin another suit'), a running gag in which our hero is handed a cup of coffee by everyone he meets and the never-to-be-erased sight of Neeson, 73, disguised as a schoolgirl. By the time a villain spies on Drebin and Beth — plus their dog — with thermal imaging goggles and gets a whole lot more than he bargained for, I was hooting helplessly.
Neeson, like Sean Connery before him, appears to have been granted special licence to use his natural accent but those Ballymena vowels don't distract — inch-perfect realism was probably not the aim of a film that features a psychotic snowman. The casting of Drebin's love interest is fabulous — where Nielsen had Priscilla Presley, Neeson has Anderson, and their rapport, on and off screen, has set the internet ablaze. Whether or not they are a couple in real life, they look like they really do find each other irresistible — and hilarious. Anderson plays Beth, a writer of 'made-up' true crime novels who, Neeson's gumshoe-style voiceover informs us, has 'a bottom that would make any toilet beg for the brown'. She, too, is admirably deadpan, even when singing cacophonous scat jazz in a supper club.
Schaffer, a stalwart of the Lonely Island comedy group and a childhood friend of Andy Samberg's, makes several nods to the earlier Naked Gun films, including Drebin's propensity to obliviously mow down pedestrians and cyclists while driving.
The director has grabbed what could have been a poisoned chalice and downed it in one. When Drebin gazes at a portrait of his late father and says, 'I wanna be just like you but at the same time be completely new and original', we all know what he is referring to. This film isn't particularly new or original but it's just like its predecessors, which is more than enough.★★★★☆15, 85minIn cinemas from Aug 1
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