Review: Liam Neeson Nails the Laughs in the Hilariously Ridiculous THE NAKED GUN

It’s been way too long since a comedy like The Naked Gun hit the big screen, the kind of film that unapologetically hurls joke after joke, dares to be dumb, and still leaves you laughing like an idiot.

This reboot of the classic ZAZ (Zucker, Abrahams, and Zucker) franchise is a riotous throwback to the golden era of spoof comedy, and it surprisingly sticks the landing. I went in hoping to laugh, and it delivered! I haven’t laughed in a movie like this in years! This is the comedy comeback fans like me have been craving.

Liam Neesonas Lt. Frank Drebin Jr. is exactly the casting decision that makes this movie sing. He plays it straight, so painfully, perfectly straight, that every serious line becomes unintentionally (and brilliantly) hilarious.

The beauty of Neeson’s performance is in how deeply he commits to the madness, never winking at the audience. He’s all gravitas and gravel voice, while the world around him is melting into slapstick chaos. He doesn’t try to be funny, he just is, and that’s why it works.

Pamela Anderson is an absolute delight. She brings her own self-aware energy to the mix, and it totally fits the vibe. The rest of the supporting cast, Paul Walter Hauser, CCH Pounder, Kevin Durand, Cody Rhodes, Liza Koshy, Eddie Yu, and Danny Huston, all understand the assignment… have fun, go big, and don’t hold back. You can tell everyone involved was having a blast making this movie, and that infectious energy bleeds into every scene.

Director Akiva Schaffer, along with writers Dan Gregor and Doug Mand, totally gets what made the original films great. There’s no attempt to modernize the comedy into something more cynical or self-aware. This isn’t a parody of a parody. Instead, they fully embrace the “dumb but smart” formula that The Naked Gun thrived on. It’s gag after gag, pun after pun, and all the jokes land the way they are meant to. I also loved the the rapid-fire pacing of the film.

The film is dense with laughs. Seriously, it’s hard to catch everything on a first viewing because it’s packed with visual gags, wordplay, sight jokes, and absurd callbacks.

It riffs on noir, true crime, spy thrillers, and police procedurals, sometimes all at once, and it’s so delieriously relentless you barely have time to breathe. It might be clumsy and totally over-the-top, but it knows exactly what it’s doing, and that’s what makes it work.

What’s awesome about this reboot is that it doesn’t feel like a nostalgic cash-in. It’s got a heart… a ridiculous, idiotic, goofy heart, and it feels genuinely fresh. That’s rare in modern comedy. Whether it's Neeson parodying his own action-star persona or the entire cast bouncing off each other in the dumbest ways possible, it’s all played with real affection for the genre and the original series. This movie is a love letter to a style of comedy we don’t see much anymore.

The Naked Gun is the best kind of gloriously, unapologetically, beautifully dumb. It's not just the funniest movie of the year; it's the funniest movie in years. If you’re in the mood for something that goes full bananas, this is it.

Just sit back, shut off your brain, and let the absurdity wash over you. This is what comedy used to feel like and it feels damn good to have it back.