\n\tThe three-man comedy factory that ruled the 1980s with their fusillades of slapstick, sight gags, loopy non sequiturs and winking innuendo was David Zucker, Jim Abrahams and Jerry Zucker \u2014 Hollywood\u2019s ZAZ before David Zaslav. Their legacy rivals that of Mel Brooks in the \u201960s and \u201970s, most notably via Airplane! and the Naked Gun movies, though I also have a soft spot for their swerve into more conventional farce with the acerbic dark comedy Ruthless People. Even the misstep of Top Secret! yielded its share of laughs, despite attempting to hit an unwieldy jumble of parody targets.<\/p>\n
\n\tHaving honed their skills in a college sketch-comedy troupe, the trio\u2019s strategy was to throw as many jokes per minute at the screen as possible, the sillier the better, ensuring that enough of them stuck to cushion the ones that missed the mark.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tThe Naked Gun\t\t<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\tThe Bottom Line<\/p>\n
\tDumb fun that lands often enough to squeak by.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\tRelease date: Friday, Aug. 1
Cast: Liam Neeson, Pamela Anderson, Paul Walter Hauser, CCH Pounder, Kevin Durand, Cody Rhodes, Liza Koshy, Eddie Yu, Danny Huston
Director: Akiva Schaffer
Screenwriters: Dan Gregor, Doug Maud, Akiva Schaffer, based on the TV series Police Squad! created by David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, Jerry Zucker
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tRated PG-13,
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t1 hour 25 minutes\n\t\t<\/p>\n
\n\tTheir 1982 ABC series spoofing crime procedurals, Police Squad!, lasted just six episodes. But ZAZ resurrected the idea for the big screen in 1988 with The Naked Gun<\/a>: From the Files of Police Squad! (these guys seldom met an exclamation point they didn\u2019t love), which became a successful trilogy centering on Leslie Nielsen<\/a>\u2019s bumbling but oblivious Detective Sergeant Frank Drebin. <\/p>\n \n\tCut to 31 years later \u2026<\/p>\n \n\tNobody could accuse director Akiva Schaffer (who, like ZAZ, hails from a comedy trio, The Lonely Island) and his co-writers or producer Seth MacFarlane of lacking affection for the material. That\u2019s evident in the sweet homages to Nielsen and George Kennedy as Capt. Ed Hocken \u2014 O.J. Simpson not so much.<\/p>\n \n\tThe filmmakers follow the formula to a T in this legacy sequel or reboot or whatever you want to call it, enlisting the sons of Drebin (Liam Neeson<\/a>) and Hocken (Paul Walter Hauser<\/a>) as the new Police Squad team to provide plot continuity. Even if the movie kind of stalls midway as Schaffer struggles to balance the gags with the action of an overly elaborate crime plot, there are enough laugh-out-loud moments to keep nostalgic fans of the earlier films happy and maybe make some new converts.<\/p>\n \n\tJust as Nielsen was established primarily as a dramatic actor before becoming a ZAZ linchpin in Airplane! and The Naked Gun, Neeson arrives trailing the gravitas of his late-career reinvention as a steely dispenser of vengeance and retribution, in Taken et al. The actor\u2019s dead serious delivery provides a subtle meta underlay as Frank Jr. takes down bad guys and tackles a master criminal, starting with a bank robbery prologue whose funniest jokes are given away in the trailer.<\/p>\n \n\tThe heist ties into the suspicious death of a brilliant tech engineer, whose electric vehicle went off the road. The victim\u2019s sister, Beth Davenport (MVP Pamela Anderson<\/a>), seeks Frank\u2019s help in investigating what she\u2019s convinced was murder. He tells her to leave the detective work to the professionals, but they both turn up at a club run by her brother\u2019s boss, Edentech founder Richard Kane (Danny Huston<\/a>).<\/p>\n \n\tA mogul cut from the Elon Musk mold, Kane has a nefarious plan involving an amusingly named PLOT Device (Primordial Law of Toughness) with mind-altering properties, which is part of what he calls \u201cProject Inferno.\u201d But before that gets activated, he cozies up to Frank with the gift of Police Squad\u2019s first electric cop car. <\/p>\n \n\tWeary of dealing with angry calls from the mayor about Frank\u2019s blithe trail of city property destruction, police chief Davis (CCH Pounder<\/a>) warns him to play nice with major donor Kane, since Police Squad\u2019s funding is at risk.<\/p>\n \n\tThat thread doesn\u2019t really go anywhere in the script by Dan Gregor, Doug Maud and Schaffer. Nor does Kane\u2019s talk of a \u201cDoomsday Giggle Bunker,\u201d where entertainment will be provided by \u201cWeird Al\u201d Yankovic \u2014 one of a handful of celebrity cameos. The same goes for Hauser\u2019s thankless role as Ed Hocken Jr., who plays straight man to Frank\u2019s self-serious dimwit, when the writers remember to include him.<\/p>\n \n\tEven in a spoof of a police procedural, the crime under investigation needs a minimum of internal logic, but mastermind Kane\u2019s big scheme to destroy and remake Los Angeles \u2014 and possibly the world \u2014 to his own specifications pushes the movie almost into the absurdist espionage territory of the Austin Powers series. Senior or junior, Frank Drebin is an L.A. city cop, not Ethan Hunt.<\/p>\n \n\tLuckily, Neeson and Anderson have enough spark to carry the film, not to mention great chemistry. I could have done without the padding of a winter cabin romantic interlude with a killer snowman \u2014 there\u2019s a difference between dumb and annoyingly stupid \u2014 but their scenes together are the high points throughout.<\/p>\n \n\tHearing Neeson express Frank\u2019s enduring anger about the Janet Jackson Super Bowl incident, reflect on the cultural importance of the Black Eyed Peas, berate Beth for messing up his Buffy the Vampire Slayer recordings or break down the characters on Sex and the City after someone says \u201cMiranda rights\u201d is a droll pleasure. His tough-guy physical comedy also scores, as he swats off armed criminals or bites off the barrel of a gun pointed at him without breaking a sweat.<\/p>\n \n\tThere\u2019s a moment early on in which he kneels beneath his father\u2019s photograph on the Police Squad wall of honor and says, \u201cI want to be just like you, but at the same time, completely different.\u201d Which is pretty much the manifesto of anyone reviving a popular franchise after multiple decades of dormancy. The Naked Gun is at least a step up from the lifeless Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F<\/a>, to name one recent example.<\/p>\n \n\tNeeson clearly is having a blast sending up his hyperviolent screen persona of recent years, and his enjoyment is infectious up to a point. But even when the narrative momentum sputters as the movie loads up on jokes at the expense of structure or character, Neeson\u2019s scenes with Anderson are bliss.<\/p>\n