Theatrical comedies in general have taken a beating in the last few years. The Naked Gun is a blast from the past, a reminder that we are not better than the most puerile, 3rd grade bits and gags you can throw at us. Chris Person and Gita Jackson sat down to discuss why they love the various gags, spoofs and bits of Detective Frank Drebin Jr. and Beth Davenport.
Gita: Hello Chris! We are here to talk about The Naked Gun, a very very funny movie I had no idea was directed by Akiva Schaeffer from The Lonely Island! I had a hell of a lot of fun watching this one in a theater full of laughing people. I went in completely blind, just off the recommendations of friends, and I actually have never seen a Naked Gun movie before this. What's your relationship to the series, if you have one?
Chris: I have a deep love for the spoof movie genre in every era, and basically anything descended from or adjacent to the Zucker brothers (especially Top Secret!) It's hard enough to get a comedy out there generally, let alone one of these, and I had a feeling they were on to something the second I saw they had cast Liam Neeson to replace Leaslie Nielsen.
Gita: Man, Liam Neeson really killed it in this movie. Some of his line reads were so unexpected and hilarious. I especially loved the way he tackled the part of the character that takes everything extremely literally. But to me the real standout of the film was Pamela Anderson. A delight in every scene.
Chris: She's doing the Priscilla Presley role from the original series and I'm glad they cast her, it's the perfect role for her. She has always been underrated in comic roles and she organically knew how to nail the tone. Also she looks good! And she and Liam Neeson are apparently dating now.
Gita: THEY'RE SOOOOOOOOO CUTE TOGETHER. They had such incredible chemistry in the movie, I'm so happy they got together.
Chris: Though I don't think it's important to know the details of a plot like this because it's just pure gags, it's fun to do anyway. Neeson plays Frank Drebin Jr., son of Leslie Nielsen's character from the first series. It starts with the big Dark Knight style bank heist from the trailer, but the whole thing is a cover for the bad guys to get away with a P.L.O.T. Device. This propels Frank towards a mysterious car crash, the victim's sister Beth Davenport (played by Anderson) and tech billionaire named Richard Cane played excellently by Danny Huston.
Gita: This is a movie where the script is designed to cram as many jokes as humanly possible into each and every scene. It's a little bit Simpsons-esque in that it's always trying to make someone laugh, creating this environment where someone is always laughing in the theater with you. I cracked the fuck up at a gag related to the uncensored version of "Lets Get It Started" by The Black Eyed Peas, because, as you know, the DJ played it at my wedding. But the movie is filled with random gags you might even miss if you're not paying attention.
Chris P: They subscribe to the ideology of the original movie that there should constantly be a machine gun spray of bits aggressively happening, oftentimes building one on top of another. A lot of times it's the Zucker style "Don't Call Me Shirley" wordplay filling in the gaps, the audience should not have room to rest. If one doesn't land, wait half a second.
Personally I love the recurring bit about the fact that the cops just keep getting cups of coffee handed to them, and are throwing the old ones away, and the cups just keep getting bigger. That's not smart humor but smart humor is overrated. Gimmie the stupid stuff. Give me that 2 brain cells Scary Movie stuff.
Gita: God that bit is so good. I also loved Liam Neeson's bodycam footage later in the movie where he keeps eating chili dogs and starts crying about how disgusting he is. But by far my favorite gag is the windshield thing.
Chris P: God that bit kept going. I hate to relate everything to The Simpsons but that is a Homer bit.
I hate calling a movie "important" because that is loaded and in the case of Naked Gun seems absurd to say, but the reason it is doing well is because a core need has not been satisfied for a very long time. Every culture needs its silly goof movies, in Hong Kong in the 90s it was "Mo lei tau" (think Stephen Chow) and we had ours until various forces decimated theatrical comedy. Now the stuff that survived is too clever by half or too poorly made in a cynical way. We needed this W. It feels of a piece of the last movie we chatted about: The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie.
Gita: Right! I was thinking that while I was in the theater with my husband. As we walked out of the cinema, he told me he was hoping that this movie had the same impact on a teenager as Anchorman had on him. The mid budget comedy used to rule the box office—the Judd Apatow movie was once my bread and butter. Like the rom-com, that has given way for the superhero movie, which feels like a real shame. There is simply nothing that makes you feel closer to your fellow man than laughing your ass off to the same stupid joke in the theater. It does feel important. Like, I want to remember how good it feels to be a part of the human race.
Chris: Comedy and horror are two of the most important genres to see theatrically if you can. You need other people there! Laughter, like fear, is infectious. A minor joke might not land with you until you see someone laughing way too hard and then it'll catch you. Other people can sell you on a joke in ways that you'll never be sold with streaming.
Chris: I also just think on a basic level everyone involved understood the assignment, and gave it their all. You can tell that these people have a deep reverence for these movies, that they have studied what makes them work. There's a part where Frank Dreben Jr. is expounding on how he wants to be both paradoxically exactly like his dad but totally different and fresh in every way, and that's just the riddle of the film. Can you pull that off? And the answer is yes.
Gita: As soon as I saw that Akiva Schaefer directed this, I understood why this movie worked. It's the Lonely Island thing of being highbrow and lowbrow at the same time. The reason why "Spring Break Anthem" works is because it is a both an incredibly silly juxtaposition of the heterosexual debauchery of spring break culture with the genuine love of two men getting married—and also a damning juxtaposition of how American culture tolerates straight men going out of control and objectifying women but also condemns homosexuality. Important to note that gay marriage wasn't legal in every state when this was made! The Naked Gun isn't reaching for that level of dissonance—though in there is a critique of Silicon Valley and tech oligarchs in there—-but it has the same ability to communicate two ideas at once.
Chris: Adjacent to that a lot of people slept on Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping. Also apparently everyone involved in this worked on that Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers movie and now I'm wondering if that movie was cooking.
Gita: Fuck... Popstar is one of my favorite comedies of all time. Do I have to watch Chip 'n' Dale?
Chris: I think we might have to Gita.
Gita: Well if we do it, we gotta get a crowd. You really need it for a good comedy.
Chris: I think I realize why I never saw it: it was sent to die on Disney+.
Gita: GOD. You're so right about comedies and streaming. It's hard to say exactly how much seeing this one in theaters improved the viewing experience, but honestly, reacting to a movie with other people is just one of the best things in the world. There was a couple on a date in my screening and on the way out they were telling each other their favorite lines. You can't replicate that on streaming unless you get all your friends together, and most often I end up streaming movies because I'm bored and alone.
It feels like the mid budget comedy is now, essentially, a streaming only genre. I think The Naked Gun makes a case for changing that status quo. I mean, what was it like for you to be surrounded by other viewers for the extended bit where Neeson and Pamela Anderson go to a romantic getaway in a cabin, only to use a magic spell to bring a snowman to life that tries to kill them both out of jealousy? It's a joke so absurd that you want other people around, to make sure it's actually happening.
Chris: Naked Gun is the future. Naked Gun is the past. Naked Gun is a movie that will heal cinema.
