Review: The Naked Gun

Image courtesy of Paramount Pictures.

It feels like it's been a while since I laughed heartily in the company of strangers in a darkened movie theater. Sure, there have been some great movies of recent years that also happened to be very funny in spurts - including work from Wes Anderson, Noah Baumbach and last year's often hilarious "A Real Pain."

But there's a difference between a dramedy made for adults and a studio comedy that has no purpose other than to make you laugh. Granted, in past decades when studios still funded big budget comedies and dumped them constantly in theaters, a fair share of them weren't very good. 

But every once in a while, a movie would come along that left you in stitches - such as "My Cousin Vinny" or "There's Something About Mary." I tried to think of the last time a movie left me rolling with laughter in the theater. Was it "Bridesmaids"? Maybe "Borat"? In other words, it's been a while.

This is a long prelude to me telling you that the new "The Naked Gun" film is pretty damn funny. Jokes fly at the audience in furious fashion and while not all of them work, a bit of inspired hilarity often follows shortly thereafter.

The film's premise is that Frank Drebin Jr. (Liam Neeson) is a cop that makes trouble for the force. While his father (Leslie Nielsen) was often an incompetent boob, Neeson plays the son in the same steely vein that he portrays characters in the action films in which he's taken part in recent years - "Taken," especially. The fact that Neeson's character never breaks out of character and winks at the audience makes the film even funnier.

The plot revolves around an evil mastermind (Danny Huston) with Elon Musk-like tendencies who has a gadget that can make any smart phone users suddenly lose their minds and become violent. His evil plan has to do with ensuring that the upper crust of society - namely, old white men - become even more powerful, while the rest of the world loses its mind.

The film opens with Drebin investigating an accident that's probably a murder and he soon becomes involved with the sister of the deceased - a true crime writer named Beth (Pamela Anderson). Drebin also has a partner named Ed Hocken (Paul Walter Hauser), who's the son of the character played by George Kennedy in the original.

While the plot is somewhat generic, the film is often screamingly funny. The best jokes in the film left the audience with whom I experienced it howling - these include a discussion of the word "manslaughter," a conversation with a bartender that ends up being a pointed commentary on police violence, the Janet Jackson Super Bowl joke you've probably heard in the commercial, continuous play on words, and a sex scene viewed through a pair of binoculars.

There are some jokes that don't land as well - perhaps, Anderson's scat musical performance sounded better on paper, and an extended fantasy sequence involving a snowman could have probably been scrapped - but like I said before: For every joke that doesn't hit the mark, it's often followed by two more that do.

While the original "Naked Gun" film remains the best of the bunch, this reboot is easily the most fun I've had at a movie this summer and without a doubt the hardest I've laughed in a movie theater in a long time. My recommendation is to see it with the biggest audience you can find, although the peril there is that you might miss out on a few jokes that are being drowned out by laughter.