Starring: Liam Neeson, Pamela Anderson, Danny Huston
Distributor: Paramount Pictures
Runtime: 85 mins. Reviewed in Aug 2025
Reviewer: Fr Peter Malone MSC
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Only one man has the particular set of skills to lead Police Squad and save the world.
Many of us enjoyed the three Naked Gun spoofs decades ago as well as the television series, Police Squad. Here is an entertaining opportunity to revive memories as well as enjoy this present comedy.
Were audiences expecting Liam Neeson to be the new Leslie Nielsen? The screenwriters were wary and came on the solution that Liam Neeson should be Frank Drebin all Jr, similar to, but not exactly like, his father, and paying homage to his father (as well as having his father intervene in the final confrontation in the form of an owl).
But the thing is that Leslie Nielsen (and there is an amusing assonance with Liam Neeson almost looking/sounding like Nielsen?) played everything not only straight-faced but almost granite-faced, not aware of his double takes on situations, probably not even aware that he took a first take. Neeson, however, is a more dramatic character, with a more expressive face. While he does play everything somewhat straight with a touch of dumb and dumber, he is also sending up his so many tough guy performances in thrillers for the last almost 20 years.
Needless to say, the film is absurd, but that is what we want. A megalomaniac trying to control the world, a device to send humans back to their animal state, corral them, tame them and send them back to re-create the world. Huston definitely fits the bill as the villain, as if in a James Bond film, except of course his willing participation in his final humiliations.
And, here is Pamela Anderson, offering a performance as she did in The Last Showgirl, able to play along with the comedy and, at moments, sending up her glamorous Baywatch image of the past. And her screeching jazz delaying tactic! Paul Walter Hauser plays the son of George Kennedy’s original performance – and there is a sly joke at the expense of OJ Simpson.
As with the originals, a lot of the jokes are basic puns and misunderstandings but, in the context they get more of a laugh and they would in real life! Eg, ‘take a chair . . .’; Response ‘no, I’ve got enough at home’. And then she does take the chair!
So word, situation and absurdity humour, sexual innuendo (and a bit beyond), with most jokes coming quickly after the other, which means we can laugh out loud or just perhaps a continuous giggle or have, mostly, a smile on our face full-time
And, of course, if we enjoy this one, there may be a 2 ½, just as with the original series.
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