The Naked Gun (2025)

Directed by Akiva Schaffer (Hot Rod, Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping), this is a a 21st Century relaunch of the crime spoof franchise which kicked off in 1988 with the original "The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!" which starred the late, great Leslie Neilsen as Lt. Frank Drebin.  Well the mantle has now been passed to Oscar-nominee Liam Neeson (Schindler's List, Darkman, Taken) who plays his son, Lt. Frank Drebin Jr.  This time around, he has his own crimes to solve kicking off with the murder of the brother of the mysterious Beth Davenport played by Pamela Anderson (The Last Showgirl, Barb Wire, Baywatch).  Furthermore, the prime suspect MIGHT be tech billionaire Richard Cane played by Danny Huston (The Constant Gardener, Wonder Woman, Children of Men).  And hilarity ensues?  Let's find out if this latest reboot can bring the funny as well as the original....  

See below for a link to a special video featuring a DELIGHTFUL scene from another movie featuring a needle-drop used within this movie:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77m3XlhQwaI

Host & Editor: Geoff Gershon

Editor: Ella Gershon

Producer: Marlene Gershon

Transcript

THE NAKED GUN - 2025

Directed by Akiva Schaffer

Starring Liam Neeson, Pamela Anderson, Paul Walter Hauser, Danny Huston, Kevin Durand, Liza Koshy, Eddie Yu, Michael Beasley, Cody Rhodes, Busta Rhymes, Jason McDonald, Moses Jones, Dave Bautista, and CCH Pounder

Genre: Spoof Comedy (Audio clip)

When it comes to seeing a movie like this, the primary focus always HAS to be one thing: did it make me laugh? Hell yeah, it's damn funny and intentionally so. 😉 Not only do director Akiva Schaffer (Pop Star, Hot Rod) along with co-writers Dan Gregor/Doug Mand throw SO many jokes and gags out there frequently - they truly commit to some extended bits for a long as humanly possible.  For at least the first half-hour of this 85 minute (!) spoof reboot/sequel, there is a running gag involving the consumption of coffee AND coffee cups which just goes SO fast and aggressive from scene-to-scene that I found myself having that personal response famously cited by the late, great Roger Ebert when it came to '80's spoof classics like Airplane or the origin Naked Gun. You see something utterly silly on-screen and you laugh.....and then you find yourself laughing again but at yourself.. for even laughing at something so stupid to begin with. 😆

The movie is even structured enough to have a cohesive story. It's the sort of "rich mad man hatches evil plan to manipulate the world" plot which we have seen in so many recent genre franchises from Kingsman to Batman.....it's nothing new but it provides ample opportunity for Liam Neeson's Frank Drebin Jr to bumble around embarrassing himself when he's not dispatching the bad guys in novel ways. Neeson is just perfect casting here as he not only has the outsized grim persona he has honed in serious films such as Schindler's List or Gangs Of New York but he also brings with him the exaggerated action chops along we have seen in films as varied as Taken, Rob Roy, or Darkman. He can effectively deliver absurd hard-boiled dialogue while still playing it VERY straight, all the while pulling off lots of crazy slapstick with aplomb. 

Whenever he has a one-on-one showdown with the main villain tech billionaire Richard Cane (Danny Huston, also inspired casting as he can now portray convincing super-villains in his sleep at this point), it's always a kick to watch. They each completely get the movie they're in along, they play well off of each other's ridiculousness...it all leads to a final face-off which is cleverly brief but sublime. This movie also just has a TON of fun with modern action tropes from extended hallway fights to out-of-control smart-cars to gun-fu to super-elaborate ruses to incriminate a suspect. 🤔 And unlike so many of those tired Friedberg/Seltzer comedies (Epic Movie, Meet The Spartans) which effectively killed the spoof genre in the early '00's, this movie rarely if ever seems to be falling back on simply referencing ONE specific iconic scene from ONE specific recent hit movie. 

Not every joke lands though most do....specifically much of the climax set around a WWF/UFC fight (?) didn’t completely work for me.  But the movie has a pretty high batting percentage, even including some stuff which was already prominently shown in the trailers. There's a bawdy heat-vision gag involving Kevin Durand's henchman Sig (again pitch-perfect casting as Durand has excelled at playing thugs like this guy for years) which already had me chuckling from the bit in the trailer....but it goes to even more absurd lengths in the movie that I was laughing even more....

Best Needledrop (best song cue or score used throughout runtime of film): 

Probably the closest this comes to even indirectly riffing on other films are several seeming winks to recent Mission: Impossible....though even that MIGHT be incidental as this movie's very effectively "INTENSE" Zimmeresque score was infact composed by Lorne Balfe who himself scored some of the more recent MI sequels. Along with occasionally incorporating some of the jazzier Ira Newborn themes from the orginal Naked Gun, he MIGHT just be poking fun at himself. 🤫(Audio clip) 

I mean you listen to this introductory track at the beginning of the movie over Drebin’s first action sequence – the one at the bank – and it just feels likely a SLIGHTLY exaggerated version of one of his bombastic orchestral scores for a Mission Impossible movie even including those now standard “BWAAAHS” which really kickstarted about 15 years ago from Zimmer’s Inception score….this track is called “My Name is Frank Drebin Jr.” (Audio clip) 

Wasted Talent (most under-utilized talent involved with film): 

This brings me to what I think ends up being this comedy's sorta-secret weapon, Pamela Anderson. :o I honestly never really saw much from her before (guess I missed the boat on Baywatch) though I have always known ABOUT her....who knew that she was such a gifted comedian too? Her Beth Davenport is part femme fatale/part crime-solving partner to Neeson's Drebin and not only are they a fun pairing but she delivers several genuine belly-laughs on her own here. For me, the obvious highlight was one sequence about half-way through when she attempts to run interference for Frank at a night club by going on-stage and just....kinda scatting and be-bopping just great stuff!  Now apparently, Anderson was also very good in last year’s The Last Showgirl which garnered her a lot of acclaim – she’s proven over the past year that she can drama AND comedy.   I can see her excelling in pure genre stuff or even pulpier stuff on TV and/or streaming from the likes of Ryan Murphy or Taylor Sheridan – let’s get her some work! 

Trailer Moment (scene or moment that best describes this movie):

Now there’s ONE notable sequence about 45 minutes into the movie which I was TEMPTED to cite for needle-drop as it features an ‘80’s pop which I have always loved.  However….the song is only really incidental to makes this scene work AND has already been more effectively used as a needle-drop in two other movies: first the original soundtrack which it first appeared on for the ‘80’s cult hit Mannequin and more recently a VERY inspired lip-synching duet with Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig in The Skeleton Twins….I swear I can just watch that sequence again and again.  What’s funnier is that I just can never get myself to watch the rest of that movie – still SUCH a joyous sequence, I’ll include a link to it in the description for this episode.   The song is of course Starship’s pop smash from 1987, “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now.” (Audio clip) 

Now the sequence which I’m referring to in this here The Naked Gun….well it kicks off as a romantic montage between Frank and Beth….they’re falling in love, having FUN….it feels like a fun callback to that great sequence with Leslie Nielsen and Priscilla Presley set to “Something Tells Me I’m Into Something Good” from the original movie.  You know they keep doing WACKY stuff together, they’re BONDING….but then suddenly the sequence just takes a weird turn and gets sillier and WEIRDER, both funny AND surprising.  I don’t want to spoil too much as this just came out….but let’s just say that it involves A SNOWMAN. (Audio clip)   

MVP (person or people most responsible for the success of this film):

Apparently, the director is part of The Lonely Island crew and though I haven’t see any other films he has directed, I HAVE quite enjoyed some of his more prominent videos including Dick in a Box….and I just LOVE the Jack Sparrow one with Michael Bolton, already a fun little sample of how well he can satirize movies specifically. (Audio clip) 

Well he definitely brings that go-for-broke “anything for laughs” spirit to this movie and impressively, it’s pretty much sustained for 85 minutes….no small feat.  There are not only sustained bits here but LAYERS of jokes – the great CCH Pounder who has played MANY a cop and/or legal authority figures over the past several decades in a variety of film and TV from The Shield to Face/Off…well here she plays Drebin’s boss, Chief Davis.  So you THINK she’s gonna be doing the typical screaming police captain stuff…. which she does.  But then her character skews in a different direction to satirize a DIFFERENT type of authority figure….the modern work-life balance trope of the woman in charge with just a LITTLE taste of their mild-mannered home life before they’re thrust into things…. a la Judi Dench’s M in recent James Bond movies or Zoe Saldana’s CIA team leader Joe on the Paramount Plus series Lioness….you see they’re TOUGH but they’re PEOPLE too…and they always have some doting husband who’s much more passive.  Well here we get to meet Chief Davis’s husband in a couple of scenes and to describe his presence as PASSIVE is an understatement….it’s almost more clever than funny but I dug it nonetheless.  For helping to deliver a shot-in-the-arm to a long dead genre, Akiva Schaeffer is the MVP. (Audio clip) 

Final Rating: 4 stars out of 5 

Where would I rank this among that overall spoof genre?  Not quite in the top tier with the original Naked Gun, the first Austin Powers, or previous episodes Top Secret or Anchorman.  But likely more among the SECOND tier alongside the Naked Gun sequels and Spaceballs….not a bad place to be, check it out! 

Now Playing in Theaters

And that ends another MANS-LAUGHTER-INDUCING review!