Film Screening: The Naked Gun

Few actors have the comedic gravitas to follow the role of Lieutenant Frank Drebin, made legendary by the late great Leslie Nielsen – but gravel-voiced Irish action hero Liam Neeson does it with style as Frank Jr. in this reboot of The Naked Gun (2025, PG-13), with the equally unlikely Pamela Anderson proving a hilarious co-star. Starting with the 1982 ABC series Police Squad!, the Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker team behind ridiculous dad-joke movies like Airplane! put the Lieutenant through three feature films of wacky crimebusting and wild slapstick. A dignified leading man with a tan, a baritone and a perfect silver coif, Leslie Nielsen shifted effortlessly from an early career of straight Hollywood roles to a second act of spoofing classic TV cops with his formidable deadpan and waggling eyebrows. After he passed away in 2010, there were many attempts to revive the Naked Gun series with many proposed Drebins, but somehow Neeson (like Nielsen, known for a very different kind of role) turned out to be the winner. Frank Drebin Jr. follows in the footsteps of his dad, busting 21st century crimes with the latest gadgets. Here he must track down a futuristic device with the help of the cute but zany sister of the newly deceased tech mogul who invented it, before it can fall into the hands of a megalomaniac villain. Many scenes of inspired lunacy, including a romantic throuple with a snowman, a self-driving police car and a standout bit of Anderson doing manic jazz-scat vocalizing – one of her underappreciated off-screen talents.