acid reflects

Not bad for a stubborn old fool. Old IP gets resurrected for the woke-era audience, and the result is a hilarious slapstick that can reshape an action icon into a lead comedic actor. Well, maybe if there’s a sequel.

Action legend Liam Neeson, the actor taken to (get it, Taken? Lol) beating up bad guys with the butt of his gun, and who is also remembered as the Schindler who made The List stars as the new version of police detective Frank Drebin in the 2025 revival of the 1988 slapstick classic The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!

Frank Drebin isn’t a household name, let’s be real. He isn’t today and hasn’t been one since the late 80s – early 1990s. But that’s okay, because it looks like Frank Drebin Junior can make a name for himself today, and papa Drebin can be proud of him.

After single-handedly busting a bank robbery in a schoolgirl’s uniform, detective Frank Drebin (Neeson) and his partner Ed Hocken Jr (Paul Walter Hauser) of the Los Angeles Police Squad investigate the mysterious death of an IT professional. Initially pinning the death as a suicide, the victim’s sister, Beth Davenport (Pamela Anderson), visits Drebin at the police station to claim that the death is not a suicide.

Beth suggests that her brother’s death is linked to his work for tech billionaire Richard Cane (Danny Huston), who is shown to be the mastermind behind the bank robbery earlier in the film. Sparks don’t fly but there’s a defnite tension between the two. Wait, is this a rom-com?

As the investigation progresses, Frank and Beth uncover a sinister plot by Cane and his cabal of billionaire villains. Having been suspended by the Squad for insubordination, Frank, Ed, and Beth try to stop Cane before mayhem engulfs the city.

The story is a simple police procedural parody, but what sells is the perfect casting of Neeson and his deadpan delivery of inappropriate one-liners, word misuse, and gaffes. We know from his previous works (such as The A-Team, A Million Ways to Die in the West, The Lego Movie, and Men in Black: International) that Neeson can do comedy for real, but this is his first outing as a comedy lead. Nobody could have done it better, and nobody of his calibre could have been cast in his stead (who else has that gravitas and demeanor and fits the action persona? Denzel? Keanu? The movie would definitely have been different.)

Kudos mainly to the scripting and direction by Akiva Schaffer that ensured mile-a-minute delivery of goofy gags, puns, and slapstick reminiscent of the original films that were the hallmark of Leslie Nielsen and director David Zucker.

But the original series starring Leslie Nielsen was a product of its time. Its humor was racist, inappropriate, bigoted, misogynistic, Islamophobic, and everything else politically incorrect. Even with parody and satire cards, these jokes won’t fly today as easily as they did before.

What’s amazing is how the new version had almost none of these red flag jokes but kept the gags, slapstick, and deadpan humor of the cult classic intact. New jokes in the same style. I suspect that the makers were unsure this would work 100% before the film premiered, but judging by its first weekend boxoffice that it did. I lol’d and I lol’d, it was almost therapeutic.

The biggest laugh that had the cinema roaring was a dream sequence involving a snowman. This was barely shown in the trailer. It’s probably a statement when a comedy doesn’t show its funniest parts in the trailer. Part of this effective joke is the (almost too-real?) on-screen chemistry between Neeson and Anderson. With rumors flying around that the romance has developed in real life, seeing their interactions onscreen only adds to the humor, or art imitating life. In one scene, Frank muses on how he has set aside romance after being hurt before, as if the real Neeson is speaking of his real-life experience losing his wife, Natasha Richardson in an accident.

There’s a slight catch for the Filipino audience, though. Admittedly, the high-speed play with words and gags may fly over the heads of regular Filipinos who don’t speak English as a second language. Fluency isn’t the issue, but familiarity with playing with words. This comedy is best appreciated by those accustomed to US American blunt jokes and sarcasm, often intended to be literal. It is like watching your dear grandpa embarrass themself in public nonstop – it’s cute, it’s uncomfortable, sometimes frustrating – and that’s the joke. It shouldn’t be happening, but it is, and (sadly) sometimes in the real world, too. That’s why it’s funny. It may not be for everyone, but for me, easily the most laughs I’ve had from a movie this year.

The Naked Gun can stand on its own as the funniest film of the year (references to the original NOT crucial.) Can we now ship PamLiam, please? We urgently need a sequel.

The Naked Gun is in Philippine cinemas August 13, 2025, from Paramount Pictures Ph.