The Naked Gun reboot has arrived to remind Hollywood that comedy is still legal, although the industry has placed it under observation and warned it not to make sudden movements.
Akiva Schaffer’s 85 minute film gives Liam Neeson the badge of Lieutenant Frank Drebin Jr, a famously straight face and a body apparently committed to destroying one suit at a time. Pamela Anderson plays Beth, while the plot involves a technology visionary, world domination and the sort of civic emergency usually handled by a man falling through a ceiling.
The film treats catastrophic stupidity as standard police procedure. A chilli dog receives the solemn attention of a bomb disposal operation. Jazz scat is examined like criminal evidence. Somewhere, an officer is still writing a report on why a beaver has entered the investigation.
Superintendent Barry, Commander of Comic Evidence, announces that procedure requires everyone to maintain a straight face until the furniture becomes involved. The furniture, having seen the film, has already requested legal representation.
Hollywood has spent years discussing the disappearance of broad cinema comedy as though it were a missing child with an exceptionally complicated franchise history. The Bureau of Marketable Laughter has apparently concluded that audiences want familiar intellectual property, provided the intellectual property occasionally trips over its own trousers.
The reboot’s plot is sturdy enough to connect its densely packed gags. Drebin investigates a scheme involving world domination and a technology visionary, while the film investigates whether a modern audience can tolerate a joke that has not first attended a brand safety meeting.
That may explain the marketing appeal to audiences to save comedy by attending opening weekend. Most films ask viewers to save cinema by buying popcorn at a price normally associated with a small property deposit. This one at least admits that the rescue operation involves a police badge and a digestive emergency.
Neeson commits fully to the deadpan tradition. His expression suggests a hostage negotiation even when his character is losing a battle with lunch. The film understands the old comic rule. If a gag is weak, do not arrest it. Put a better gag behind it and let the first one flee the country.
Hollywood has not recovered its dignity. It has recovered something more useful. The evidence bag is full of jokes, every suspect is laughing, and the last serious actor has been placed in chilli dog witness protection, where the only testimony is a noise that cannot be repeated in polite company.
Real story: BFI Sight and Sound.
