The Naked Gun (1988) Movie Review streaming on Netflix.
The art of the parody film seemed lost forever. With the ZAZ crew (David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker) bringing out hit after hit such as Airplane, Top Secret!, and then the iconic The Naked Gun series, it felt like the parody genre was untouchable as the mantle was handed over to the Wayans’ clan who continued the trend with the Scary Movie series. Then in the mid 2000s, the parody film turned into the most heinous, lowest-denominator, lazy attempts at humour when the dull-duo of Friedberg and Seltzer mass produced absolute stinkers like Meet The Spartans and Disaster Movie.
The thing with parody films is that the idea of making fun of current culturally significant events and themes is entertaining, but when it’s not played with sincerity and reverence, it just becomes targeted potshots at celebrity culture. This is what films like 1988’s The Naked Gun did so perfectly. It was absolutely making fun of tropes found in detective TV shows and films, the cultural events of the time, and contained a litany of dumb jokes and bits, but Leslie Nielsen’s performance and the ZAZ’s writing showed that they understood and loved the genre itself, and were able to make a funny movie that was also a sincere detective story.
” the art of the parody film seemed lost forever…“
The Naked Gun of the film is Police Squad Lt. Frank Drebin (played by Neilsen), who despite his bumbling buffoonery, is still able to solve cases on a regular basis, even on a global scale as seen in the film’s opening moments, where he uncovers and dismantles a potential terrorist attack on the United States by going undercover as a server in a meeting between all of the world’s bad guys. But when he returns to home soil, the impending arrival of the Queen of England leads Drebin on a case in which he must foil an assassination attempt on the Queen herself.
Parody is an artform, because to create something with as many dumb jokes, both verbal and physical, you have to be pretty smart. The intricate play-on-phrase dialogue (“Doctors say he only has a 50-50 chance of living. And there’s only a 10% chance of that.”), slapstick violence, and 80s era innuendo (with a lot of breast shaped items often serving as punchlines), provides a laugh-a-minute ride in which it would be incredibly easy to miss jokes because of how hard you were laughing from the last bit. Nothing, however, will make me personally laugh more than the brilliantly constructed opening credits montage which involved the top of a police car initially driving on the street, and then making its way into various locations that a car definitely should not be, like a gym shower and family’s living room.
Each joke feels so carefully, intricately constructed, but none of it works unless it’s delivered with such precision. Leslie Neilsen, whose career began in Western’s and romance films, brings a “dramatic performer” mentality to Drebin that allows the sincerity to flow through the comedy. The jokes land because Neilsen, who exhibits phenomenal comedic timing, isn’t actually trying to intentionally be funny. Frank Drebin is a bumbling fool, but he’s not trying to be, and that’s why it’s incredibly amusing.
The Naked Gun also works narratively, with the investigative plot about the Queen’s assassination, a blossoming romance between Drebin and Jane Spencer (Priscilla Presley), and a solid villain in millionaire crime syndicate leader, Ludwig (Ricardo Montalban), bringing enough cohesion and flow to the film that it doesn’t feel just like a bunch of sketches stitched together, and that has undoubtedly played a lasting impact on the reason it has withstood the cinematic test of time.
And now with The Naked Gun continuing on with Liam Neeson in the lead role, and early reviews praising how it manages to capture the timeless spirit of the original film, it feels like, finally, the parody film is having a much deserved resurgence.
The Naked Gun (1988) is available to stream on Netflix
