The Naked Gun | Directed by Akiva Schaffer // Starring Liam Neeson, Pamela Anderson, Paul Walter Hauser
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Summary (Spoiler-free): In The Naked Gun, Lieutenant Frank Drebin Jr. (Liam Neeson), the hilariously dead-serious son of the legendary bumbling cop, is called back into action when a suspicious car crash leads to a massive conspiracy. Teaming up with true-crime author Beth Davenport (Pamela Anderson) and his loyal partner Ed Hocken Jr. (Paul Walter Hauser), Drebin uncovers a sinister plot by tech billionaire Richard Cane (Danny Huston), who plans to use a device called the PLOT to turn humanity into mindless killers.
I went into the Naked Gun reboot with the enthusiasm of someone being dragged to a karaoke night by their HR department. Reboot fatigue is real. Spoof films are hit or miss at best (and let’s face it, mostly miss). And trying to follow in Zucker, Abrahams, and Zucker directorial and Leslie Nielsen’s acting footsteps? That’s not just risky. That’s borderline disrespectful.
But here’s the twist: I liked it. I laughed. Out loud. A lot.
Liam Neeson, somehow, is perfect. I don’t know what reality we’re living in where Taken's "I will find you and I will kill you" guy can also believably pull off banana-peel pratfalls and jazz-club chaos, but here we are. The man has spent the last 15 years building an empire of stoic, gravel-voiced vengeance. He’s become synonymous with a very particular set of skills… and none of them included pratfalls, fart jokes, or chewing off the barrel of a gun. And yet? He nails it. Like, shockingly nails it.
His Frank Drebin Jr. channels the clueless confidence of his predecessor while spoofing his own grizzled action career. He’s not just committed—he’s possessed. And Pamela Anderson? Not only is she game, but she’s genuinely great. Her performance is wild, unpredictable, and weirdly grounded for a movie where people literally chew off gun barrels.
It turns out, Neeson’s Taken-era intensity is exactly what makes him so perfect for this role. He plays everything with total, deadpan seriousness, which is precisely what the Zucker-style humor demands. There’s something inherently hilarious about watching one of cinema’s most lethal action stars accidentally pants himself or deliver lines like “She had a butt that said ‘hello, I’m a talking butt’” with Oscar-level conviction. It’s not parody if you’re winking. Neeson never winks. That’s why it works.
He’s not doing an impression of Leslie Nielsen. He’s doing Frank Drebin Jr., a guy who clearly grew up in the shadow of his legendary cop dad, inherited his total lack of self-awareness, and somehow still got promoted. Neeson brings just enough gravitas to make the stupidest things seem epic, and just enough looseness to make you believe this whole thing isn’t beneath him. It’s a tightrope walk between sincerity and stupidity, and he walks it like he’s been doing this his whole career.
By the end of the film, I wasn’t thinking about Neeson’s action legacy. I was thinking about how much I want to see this version of him again. Give him more spoofs. Give him a jazz saxophone. Let him fight a yeti in a bathrobe. I don’t care. Just let him be funny. Because it turns out? He’s really good at it.
The direction by Akiva Schaffer keeps everything moving at breakneck speed. You barely get time to groan before you’re hit with something even more ridiculous. The PLOT Device? A snowman sex montage? CCH Pounder playing the most perpetually done-with-it police chief since Brooklyn Nine-Nine? It's all there and then some. The jokes don’t all land, but they never stop coming. And there’s something admirable about the sheer volume. It's like being pelted with custard pies until you surrender.
It also helps that the movie isn’t trying to be ironic or meta about its own existence. It’s not here to wink at the audience or apologize for being a reboot. It just is... absurd, old-school, and sincerely stupid in the best way. Schaffer and his team clearly love this style of comedy, and it shows. It’s dense with gags, visual, verbal, and everything in between.
Pamela Anderson is really fun here. Channeling her bombshell image into a pitch-perfect femme fatale, she somehow manages to both parody and honor the trope at the same time. Her performance is completely committed, never winking, never ironic, always game. Whether she’s scatting in a jazz club to distract a villain or delivering hilariously overwritten noir dialogue with deadly seriousness, Anderson goes all in. It’s the kind of role that could’ve easily turned into a punchline, but instead she becomes a scene-stealer, matching Neeson beat for beat. If her recent renaissance hadn’t already convinced you, The Naked Gun cements it: Pamela Anderson is back, she’s better than ever, and I am excited to see what she does next.
The rest of the cast delivers too. Paul Walter Hauser as Ed Hocken Jr. brings big George Kennedy energy. CCH Pounder as the perpetually over-it police chief is pitch-perfect. Danny Huston as the evil tech billionaire named Richard Cane is gleefully deranged. And yes, the evil plot device is literally called the PLOT Device. No notes.
If there’s one piece of advice I can give you, it’s this: see it with a crowd. There’s something about collective laughter that makes even the dumbest jokes 10 times funnier. And yes, some of them are real dumb. There were a handful of groaners that made me roll my eyes so hard I saw my frontal lobe. But right when I thought, “Okay, that’s enough,” the movie hit me with another zinger that had me choking on my popcorn. That’s the magic of it: it never lingers. The next joke is already midair before the last one even lands.
By the end, I couldn’t really tell you much about the plot (and honestly, who cares?), but I walked out feeling lighter. That’s more than I can say for most comedies these days.
Against all odds and logic, The Naked Gun reboot works. I can't say I LOVED it. This isn't a movie you can really love, as the movie itself isn't going to knock your socks off. But it SO much fun, that I couldn't care less. It won’t be for everyone, but if you miss the days of Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker chaos, or you just want to see Liam Neeson completely obliterate his serious actor image, it’s worth your time. Hopefully the success of this film gives studios confidence to invest in more bigger comedies.
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