Review: The Naked Gun (2025)
Unlike most acclaimed comedies of the past two decades, Akiva Schaffer’s The Naked Gun has little to say about our current culture. It’s not particularly topical or prophetic about social mores, doesn’t skewer regressive attitudes, nor does it satirize the blinkered nature of humanity in our current moment. It’s not a satire or a metacomedy. It’s simply a spoof, and a really damn funny one at that.
In essence, Schaffer’s film is a throwback. The film is a sequel to the Leslie Nielsen-led The Naked Gun series, starring Liam Neeson as Lieutenant Frank Drebin Jr., son of Nielsen’s character. It has been in development for well over a decade, so aspects of its approach hew closer to the early 2010s when comedies weren’t so rare in the theatrical marketplace. (As with middlebrow dramas, television seems to have absorbed most comedy within the current content environment.) But it feels much more like a comedy from the 1990s, in that it’s only interested in two things: moving the plot forward and making you laugh.
Key to the success of any film in The Naked Gun series is the commitment to the bit: these movies are structured like serious cop movies, even if every character and scenario within them is purposely stupid. So here we follow Neeson’s Frank Drebin Jr. as he investigates the connections between an apparent homicide where a man drove his smartcar into a quarry and a bank robbery where the robbers make away with only a small piece of technology from a safety deposit box. All evidence leads to tech magnate Richard Cane (Danny Huston), a kind of blend of Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Peter Thiel, and every other Silicon Valley businessman who idolizes manhood and abhors the plebes.
Do people watch The Naked Gun for the plot? Not really, but it’s important to highlight that Schaffer and his co-writers Dan Gregor and Doug Mand don’t skimp on structure. Not only does this mean the movie has a proper narrative structure to hang its jokes on, it provides the film with a propulsive momentum that means that nothing overstays its welcome, whether joke or narrative bit. These are key differences from comedies of the mid-aughts, which had the Judd Apatow brand of bloat, or modern “comedies” which don’t have any narrative structure to speak of. Schaffer and team are adamant about sticking to the formula, and it’s refreshing.
So is the cast. Casting Neeson in the lead is a stroke of genius. He might be getting a bit old (remember that he was first attached to the project years ago), but his gruff, no-nonsense approach works perfectly within this comedic world. An extended bit about bodycams and chili dogs proves just how hilarious Neeson can be when he’s playing things straight. The promise of Neeson as a comedic lead, first established during a guest appearance on Life’s Too Short, has finally been fulfilled.
Pamela Anderson is surprisingly fun as the film’s other lead, Beth Davenport, a true crime novelist who’s part femme fatale, part rival investigator for Neeson’s Drebin. Anderson not only leverages her sex appeal, but puts her great comedic timing to good use. Also, like Neeson, she never mugs for the camera, which makes a line like “I write true crime novels based on fictional stories that I make up” sing. The supporting cast is up to the job of repeating the stupidity of the past movies. Kevin Durand is appealingly dim. Paul Walter Hauser once again proves that he needs to be cast in more films. Danny Huston basically reheats his villain shtick from Edge of Darkness and X-Men Origins: Wolverine, which truly clarifies what a doofus most tech bros are. He’s completely game for some of the stupidest moments in the film, such as the climactic showdown that has a genius line reading.
As for the humour? What can you really illuminate about gags when reviewing a comedy other than simply listing which ones made you laugh? It’s a fool’s errand to try to evaluate a dumb joke because intellectualizing it robs it of its humour, but I will laud that The Naked Gun doesn’t stick to one style of humour. There are countless throwaway gags, such as Neeson obliviously hitting cyclists while driving. There are running gags involving takeaway coffee cups constantly being offered to Neeson and Hauser. There are a few bits making fun of current politics or referential gags to other movie franchises (a Mission: Impossible joke is particularly memorable). And then there are the Lonely Island-style derangements such as a romantic interlude with Neeson and Anderson that devolves into a twisted riff on the Michael Keaton movie Jack Frost. Most comedies are lucky if they deliver a single belly laugh. The Naked Gun lands dozens.
Whether every individual gag works for you is primarily a matter of taste. But I was impressed by the efficient hit to miss ratio, and the surprising heft of some of the bits. The dedication of this new movie to being aggressively stupid requires no small measure of genius, especially in such a dire comedic landscape.
8 out of 10
The Naked Gun (2025, USA)
Directed by Akiva Schaffer; written by Dan Gregor, Doug Mand, and Akiva Schaffer, based on Police Squad! by David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, Jerry Zucker; starring Liam Neeson, Pamela Anderson, Paul Walter Hauser, Danny Huston, CCH Pounder, Kevin Durand.
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