(**)
The Naked Gun is shooting blanks. Not all the time. But some of the time.
There was something so fresh and funny about police detective Frank Drebin in 1988’s The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! He was an oddball, thickskulled dufus. A character Canadian/American actor Leslie Nielsen played completely deadpan and locked and loaded for comedy. Drebin became a bumbling idiot that audiences loved. They howled at him so much the film became a trilogy. Nielsen was a dramatic actor (The Poseidon Adventure) whose career veered towards outrageous comedy when he starred in Airplane, arguably the funniest film ever made. But The Naked Gun… series took him to comedy heaven to live among the greats.
The Oscar-nominated and very serious actor Liam Neeson (Schindler’s List) took his career down a different path too. He became an action film star (Taken) who was laconic and deadly: “I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you.” Maybe after all the dramas, thrillers and action movies, he needed some comic relief, too. Not a bad idea. Not a bad performance. He’s comical consistently on screen, even when the rest of the film loses its way.
A bank is being robbed in broad daylight. Cops, who’ve surrounded the building, are trying to create an action plan. Some little girl, in a plaid skirt with big brown eyes who might be on recess from a local Catholic school, skips along down a sidewalk next to the building. She looks a lot like Jenny Ortega from the Netflix horror series Wednesday. She saunters into the bank, where everyone is affright, except for the robbers. All eyes turn to her. But she isn’t who they think she is. Next thing you know, a weird detective named Frank Drebin (Neeson) is fighting the bad guys.
It isn’t long before Frank’s boss Chief Davis (CCH Pounder) is chewing him out and warning him to stay off a case involving a suicide that might be a murder. But Frank is moved by the victim’s sultry sister Beth (Pamela Anderson), who thinks there’s been foul play.
The plotting by Dan Gregor (Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers), Doug Mand (Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers) and writer/director Akiva Shaffer (Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers and TV’s Saturday Night Live) is serviceable. As if they were tasked with reviving a famously funny comedy franchise and given only one weekend to write it. Their recipe? String together satiric pop culture sketches and bits, showcase physical pranks, go heavy on sight-gag humor and then stir. For a while what’s on view is funny to watch. But somewhere, sometime, it all runs out of gas. Like there weren’t enough comedy bullets in the chamber.
The storyline, thin as it is, involves bad guys doing bad things and Frank trying to unravel a mystery. In some cases, that alone would surely be enough to satisfy audiences who show up at theaters looking for a good laugh. But in this case, a bit more of thought-out script and wittier schtick would have helped this 85-minute film feel like every second had a comic purpose. Which isn’t the case.
The dialogue is never as funny as the visuals, it lags. When Frank interrogates one of the bank robbers, as played by Busta Rhymes, whose timing is impeccable, the film gets its funniest lines. Frank brings up the crook’s history and his past incarceration: “It says you served 20 years for man’s laughter.” Without breaking his face, Rhymes corrects him, “You mean manslaughter.” It’s the film’s most hilarious exchange and deftly shows how stupid Frank is. Wish there were more scenes of this caliber.
Many will debate which visual prank is best. But easily the most memorable image is Neeson with his leg up on a chair, manspreading and showing his strawberry print bikini underwear. The crotch shot and short plaid skirt are parody homages to Ortega on the streaming show Wednesday. Funny in itself. Funnier still if you know the correlation. Long after all the senseless fights, torn limbs and endless passing of coffee cups. Long after the faux heat sensor sequence that looks like folks are having sex, noisy fart scenes and views of OJ Simpson photos, that Neeson vision will linger. It’s hard to unsee it. Seek psychological help if you must!
Neeson took a risk playing this loser. Safe to say he’s pretty good at it and it looks like he’s having fun. Anderson is fine as the woman of mystery, but you almost wish there was more to her character. A dimension that would make the plot a bit deeper. Paul Walter Hauser (Black Bird) as Frank’s cherub-looking sidekick plays him well. Danny Huston sneers well as the bad guy and Liza Koshy is quite helpful as Detective Barns.
The production design (Bill Brzeski) and all sets are more suitable for TV than the cinema. Ditto the costumes (Betsy Heimann and Maria Tortu) and blaring lighting (cinematographer Brandon Trost), which makes everything look fake. The musical score (Lorne Balfe) doesn’t enhance much. Perhaps a catchy playlist of today’s top music awkwardly placed to make things feel more absurd might have been a better tact. Editor Brian Scott Olds had a tough task. The script, as is, doesn’t warrant an 85-minute length. But if the footage was any shorter, it wouldn’t be fit for a theater run. And if it was any longer, it would only make the film’s flaws more obvious. He did the best he could with what he had.
Better writing may have helped this OK satire become a really good one. Something closer to the feel of the original film, but likely never in the league of superior parodies, like Airplane.
If filmgoers are looking for laugh-your-guts-out comedy, they will find some of that here. But since the humor is not consistent and sustained, it’s like The Naked Gun is shooting blanks. Not all the time. But some of the time.
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLguU7WLreA
Visit Film Critic Dwight Brown at DwightBrownInk.com.