‘The Naked Gun’ review: Liam Neeson delivers a barrel-load of laughs
The Naked Gun is a rip-roaring comedy sequel/reboot starring action legend Liam Neeson.
Director Akiva Schaffer and Neeson pick up the baton from the comedy film trio Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker, and comedy icon Leslie Nielsen.
Film News Blitz’s Dan Lawrence writes that the new creative team effortlessly pick up where the original Naked Gun movies left off.
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
What is ‘The Naked Gun’ about?
After Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, Jerry Zucker and Nielsen had a rip-roaring success with the 1980 action-spoof Airplane!, they set about tackling the police genre with the series, Police Squad!
The series was short-lived, cut short after six episodes in 1982, but it birthed the 1988 feature, The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!
Nielsen’s Detective Frank Drebin quickly became a comedy icon, spawning two more films, The Naked Gun 2½: The Smell of Fear and Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult.
In 2025, Neeson, ditching his usual dramatic routine, stars as Detective Frank Drebin Jr, and goes on a similarly slapstick police adventure.
A mystery car crash and disappearance pits Neeson’s Drebin Jr and Paul Walter Hauser’s Ed Hocken Jr. against tech villain Richard Cane, played by Danny Huston.
Joining Neeson is Pamela Anderson as femme fatale Beth Davenport.
Everyone involved is dedicated to making sure you have a good time in the cinema.
Laugh-a-minute
From the opening scene, The Naked Gun sets about trying to make you laugh from every single frame.
Be it physical comedy, word play, visual gags, spoof, stupidity, slapstick and more, The Naked Gun is on overdrive to deliver a comedic spectacle for everyone to enjoy.
Guess what, it works!
The Naked Gun is categorically hilarious.
Neeson’s deadpan Drebin Jr. cuts through every joke like a hot knife through butter, and Anderson is equally adept with her comedic chops, too.
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Schaffer, one part of the iconic comedic music group, The Lonely Island, is on overdrive, paying homage to the original Naked Gun movies.
The variety of jokes and their methodology help keep this relatively brisk 90-minute movie moving at an incredible pace, and you’re guaranteed to smile throughout.
What’s more, like the original films, the jokes continue into the end credits, so you’ll want to stay in your seats until the final ones roll.
In a world where it’s easy to get dragged down by the chaos of reality, having a film like The Naked Gun in theatres is a welcome breath of fresh air.
Furthermore, this comedy is purely that —a funny film; no cross-genre baggage gets in the way.
It feels like this is a film that had once gone out of fashion, or simply disappeared from cinema screens for some time, but we should all be thankful that The Naked Gun is bringing silliness back to theatres.
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