The Naked Gun (A PopEntertainment.com Movie Review)

The Naked Gun

THE NAKED GUN (2025)

Starring Liam Neeson, Pamela Anderson, Paul Walter Hauser, Kevin Durand, Danny Huston, Liza Koshy, Cody Rhodes, CCH Pounder, Busta Rhymes, Michael Bisping, Eddy Yu, Moses Jones, Michael Beasley, Wilbur Fitzgerald, David Lengel, Brianna Haddock, Sergio Duque, Princess Elmore, Bruce Buffer, Zachary Vazquez, Dave Bautista and Weird Al Yankovic.

Screenplay by  Dan Gregor & Doug Mand & Akiva Schaffer.

Directed by Akiva Schaffer.

Distributed by Paramount Pictures. 85 minutes. Rated PG-13.

It’s hard to imagine The Naked Gun without Leslie Nielsen.

The character of Lt. Frank Drebin was created for Nielsen by David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker after the long-time actor turned out to be one of the breakout stars of the film Airplane!, which was also created by Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker. They were impressed by the way the actor could be hysterical just by playing ridiculous scenes completely straight.

The character first appeared in the (very) short-lived 1982 TV series Police Squad. Despite lots of hype and critical acclaim, the series was canceled after only four episodes aired (six episodes were actually filmed). The show’s rat-a-tat comic stylings did not work quite as well on the small screen as a film’s might. In fact, the creators originally wanted to make it as a film, but the studio decided the loose storyline would work better as a series. However, Police Squad did get a rabid cult following, and several years later Z/A/Z would get the opportunity to make that film, after all.

The film was The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad and it was an immediate smash when it was released in 1988. Made up of a series of slightly past-their-prime serious actors playing the goofy roles – with Nielsen joined by George Kennedy, Priscilla Presley, Ricardo Montalban and (gulp!) OJ Simpson, The Naked Gun was one of the funniest films of the 80s.

It was followed up by two sequels – The Naked Gun 2 ½:The Smell of Fear and The Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult. While neither sequel was as good as the original, both had their share of moments and were worth the watch. However, it’s been over thirty years since the last film. Nielsen has been dead for fifteen years. We thought that we had seen all there was to see of Frank Drebin.

I’m not going to lie; I went into this reboot – produced by Seth McFarlane and directed by Andy Samberg co-hort Akiva Schaffer – with a bit of trepidation. So many classic properties have been ruined in reboots, and the humor The Naked Gun is so specific to Nielsen and Z/A/Z that I wondered how well this could be pulled off.

On the plus side, the filmmakers hired Liam Neeson, whose career trajectory was similar to Nielsen’s – going from serious dramatic ah-ctor (Schindler’s List) to having his career completely reinvented in a different genre (for Neeson it was action films). Also, Neeson has done enough comedies over the years that we know he does have that particular skill-set, as well.

The good news is that the new Naked Gun works a lot better than we may have expected. It may not be as good as the original film, but it’s certainly up with the sequels in quality. It’s not trying to do anything but to make you laugh, and the movie does do that pretty consistently.

Neeson plays the role – officially Frank Drebin, Jr. – somewhat differently than Nielsen did, as a stiffer, gruffer, angrier character than his “dad.” Still, he has a similar deadpan style and sense of absurdness which easily pulls The Naked Gun over the finish line.

Plot point: how is it possible that Drebin Jr., who is played by 73-year-old Neeson, could be the son of Drebin, who seemed to have no children when he was played by 62-year-old Nielsen in 1988? If he had a later child, he’d be in his 30s. But, silly us for expecting narrative coherence from The Naked Gun.

What we would expect from this franchise is jokes. Not all will land – in fact, many don’t – but they are shot out at such a rat-a-tat style that if one doesn’t work there are three or four coming right down the barrel.

Film satire as a drama, like Airplane! and the original Naked Gun, is pretty much a dead art at this point. (It was mostly killed by awful crap like Meet The Spartans, A Million Ways To Die in the West, Date Movie, Scary Movie, A Haunted House, An American Carol and Baseketball.) The Naked Gun proves that there may still be some life left in this old form.  

In the meantime, when was the last time you spent an hour and a half in a cinema laughing a lot more than you expected?

As the OG Frank Drebin would have put it, “You take a chance getting up in the morning, crossing the street, or sticking your face in a fan.”

I’m glad to report that the new Naked Gun is a chance well worth taking. 

Jay S. Jacobs

Copyright ©2025 PopEntertainment.com. All rights reserved. Posted: July 31, 2025.