A fresh look at slapstick, the Naked Gun reboot fires up nostalgia with a side of modern-day laughs.
[Courtesy Paramount Pictures] What if you remixed Liam Neeson’s character in Taken (Brian Mills) with Leslie Nielsen’s character from Police Squad (Frank Drebin), you get a “very particular set of skills, acquired over a long career,” to help revive a franchise from a bygone era, The Naked Gun.
The originals are classics, comedy gold from a time when modern sensitivities were far more liberal–to say the least. Nielsen’s bumbling band of officers in Police Squad (1982), which also stars a still socially acceptable O.J Simpson in some of his best comedic work, were a wild and raunchy bunch. The film’s edginess and sexual undertones are representative of late 70s and 80s movies (remember Porky’s?).
The new The Naked Gun, based on trailers released so far (and a sneak peek France’s premiere 🤫), appears to continue pushing the envelope; see Neeson morph from a Catholic School girl licking a massive lollipop into a middle aged police detective to make a collar. Needless to say, his private school apparel stays on but is now shrink-to-fit and does not at all hide his red Fruit Of The Looms.
Imagine an off-beat, irreverent, raunchy comedy with gratuitous violence and cool catchphrases! One can only hope that the new The Naked Gun unleashes a real kickass Police Squad led by a new Drebin.
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