‘The Naked Gun’: Mining nostalgia to score laughs

Director Akiva Schaffer’s take on the Leslie Nielsen laugh riot ‘The Naked Gun’ is a glass half full. This action comedy, as a next-generation sequel, is quite spoofy and entertaining for the first 30-odd minutes but thereafter, it just becomes ridiculous, with nothing much to laugh about.

The joke selection is just a bit mild, curated to suit slightly more conservative tastes. So there’s no spiralling out of control laugh riot — just a mildly funny impression of the real deal.

For the first half hour, this reboot is quick and relentless, in sending up sight gags, double entendre, and cliches.

Akiva Schaffer, along with his co-writers Doug Mand and Dan Gregor, load up enough jokes to make you get really involved in this ridiculous array of spoofy shenanigans. But thereafter, it slows down and the jokes dry up.

Detective Frank Drebin Jr (Neeson) and his partner Ed Jr (Hauser) have taken after their respective fathers. They, too, are part of the LA police squad. The apparent suicide of a genius who worked for tech billionaire Richard (Huston) becomes their case after the victim’s sister, true crime novelist Beth (Anderson), convinced that it was murder, approaches Frank for justice.

The chief (Pounder) though doesn’t want anything affecting the police funding, so top funder Richard is not one they can cross. Richard’s henchman Sig (Durand) is also on their trail, so soon enough Frank and Ed find themselves working outside the law.

To add to the complications, Frank and Beth develop romantic feelings for each other and get together for a sexy weekend building a snowman in the mountains. When Drebin Jr first sets his eyes on Beth, he describes her person in an ecstatic voiceover. The romance ends up becoming an extended gag sequence involving Neeson and Anderson being watched by a thug during a date, and a montage that takes you further away from the central plot.

Neeson’s Detective Lt Frank Drebin Jr, the son of the LA cop once played by Nielsen, is haunted by his late father’s reputation. Paul Walter Hauser’s role of his impassive partner Capt Ed Hocken Jr, son of Drebin Sr’s partner, is not written with any great levity.

The new ‘Naked Gun’ mines nostalgia to score a precious few imminently disposable laughs. Sgt Frank Drebin Jr’s casual relationship with the law, and frequent dropping of his pants in public has its moments. Some of the gags, especially the one at the very beginning involving Drebin Jr surveying a crime scene, hearkens back to the original.

The narrative seems pretty random, pieced together from crazy set-pieces as Frank absurdly bumbles along en route to solving the crime. It’s all played with a straight face, dry wit complemented by a thumping Lorne Balfe score. Some of the dialogues, sight gags and sequences manage to score a few laughs, but it gets murky and non-redeemable when the plot jumps to another thread.

Neeson’s deadpan charm and deep baritone prove to be highly effective here. He is an ideal successor, given that he has initials in common with his predecessor, the iconic Leslie Nielsen, and he manages to deliver each ridiculous joke without so much as batting an eyelid — while dropping innuendos or inadvertently leaving carnage in his wake.

His chemistry with Anderson is crackling and together they create a charming circle of romance in the midst of all that bumbling mayhem. They also generate quite a few funny moments together. The cameos and supporting performers also indulge in the byplay with verbal volleys and ridiculous slapstick.

This movie is quite stupid but it manages to keep us interested with its goofy silliness. This legacy sequel basically continues the story with an all-new cast playing second generation characters that echo the idiotic shenanigans of the original characters. The visual and verbal jokes, clichés, slapstick, irreverent humour and the risque sexual innuendos are all there but in smaller measure. This new film’s attempts to honour Nielson and company comes halfway to scoring punchlines and sight gags in a scattered disorienting way.

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