The Bare Gun is silly. Silly, silly, silly. It’s a movie so devoted to tripping over its personal shoelaces that you simply begin to admire the sheer athleticism of its clumsiness. It’s like watching Liam Neesonthe solemn priest of revenge thrillers, wander onto a banana peel manufacturing facility ground—and by no means discovering the exit.
Akiva Schaffer’s newest film is gag after gag, joke after joke, pratfall piled onto pratfall till you begin to surprise if the movie has a dare going with itself: How far can we push earlier than the final sane viewers member checks out?
For me, the reply was by no means. Aside from the truth that I had the movie show all to myself (once more!), I stayed, I laughed, and—towards all odds—I had enjoyable.
Puns, Semantics, and Infantile Pratfalls
The plot, if we will even name it that, is about Frank Drebin Jr. (Neeson), son of Leslie Nielsen’s iconic detective, who stumbles right into a scheme cooked up by Richard Cane (Danny Huston), a billionaire Bond-villain sort with a tech gadget that might spell humanity’s doom. The gadget identify? P.L.O.T. Gadget, simply one of many numerous puns within the movie.
Cane’s plan: wipe out most of humanity, create a playground for the wealthy, and begin society over. Should you’re considering “hasn’t Samuel L. Jackson already tried this in Kingsman?,” the movie thinks so too—and it solutions with faceplants, musical numbers, and even a jealous threesome with an enormous snowman. The plot is pure placeholder, a laundry line for gags so juvenile they make dad jokes sound like Wildean wit.
So why was I laughing? Why, sitting alone in an empty theater, did I discover myself guffawing like a child caught sneaking sweet?
The key lies in how severe this movie is about not taking itself severely. Akiva Schaffer directs with the dedication of a person who is aware of he’s holding a pie destined on your face, and the writers (Schaffer co-wrote the screenplay with And Gregor and Doug Mand) double down on idiocy as if it’s their ethical obligation. The jokes aren’t sly, they’re cannonballs of corniness: semantic wordplay, fumbles that final half a minute too lengthy, and set-ups so groan-worthy they loop again round to being humorous.
Comedy Performed Straight Is a Gold Mine for Laughs
Comedy sequels haven’t any proper to work this effectively, particularly ones that decide up after a 30-year hibernation. However what the filmmakers perceive—and what so many reboots overlook—is that silly comedy solely lands when it’s handled with full, virtually holy seriousness.
After which there’s Neeson. There’s a peculiar pleasure in watching an actor recognized for gravitas lean all the way in which into farce. And watching him channel his explicit model of Taken-era grimness right into a rubber-chicken universe is a uncommon form of comedy alchemy. Leslie Nielsen was the king of taking part in it straight; Neeson doesn’t imitate him, however he understands the method: ship each line as if Western civilization will depend on it, irrespective of how absurd the phrases.
When he masquerades as just a little schoolgirl prancing inside a financial institution in the midst of a heist and solutions a henchman who asks what the woman desires with “your ass,” he gravels like he’s again as Bryan Mills out for vengeance. Or when he prays for an indication from his father and will get an owl that later dive-bombs the villain with feces, Neeson reacts with the gravity of Oppenheimer reporting on Hiroshima. That’s the magic—seriousness colliding head-on with stupidity till sparks fly.
Pamela Anderson has her share of enjoyable because the movie’s love curiosity who’s someway each self-aware and fully oblivious, and right here she leans into the insanity with gusto. Paul Walter Hauser turns each response shot right into a punchline. And CCH Pounderstern as granite, could be the funniest of the bunch, as a result of she doesn’t seem like in on the joke in any respect.
‘The Bare Gun’: A Shamelessly Silly Comedy That’s Genuinely Enjoyable
What makes The Bare Gun work for me isn’t originality (there isn’t a single scheme right here Bond or Austin Powers hasn’t lampooned) however its shamelessness. It by no means tries to cover that it’s corny, or disguise the truth that most of its humor is nearer to a knock-knock joke than a classy zinger. The gags land not as a result of they’re intelligent however as a result of the film refuses to allow them to fail. It retains going, retains hammering, till you’ll be able to’t assist however give in.
The Bare Gun isn’t excessive artwork—hell, it’s barely coherent. However to cite Pauline Kaelfilms are so not often nice artwork that if we will’t admire nice trash, why trouble? This movie is a robust candidate for dumbest of the 12 months, and it additionally occurs to be one of the crucial purely pleasing theater journeys I’ve had recently. There’s a bizarre poetry in that contradiction: the film is constructed on nothing however nonsense, but I left feeling lighter than I’ve after a number of the 12 months’s “severe” choices.
I wouldn’t advocate it to everybody—God assist the viewer who walks in anticipating subtlety—however when you give up to the idiocy, you may uncover, as I did, that stupidity may be its personal form of bliss.
A self-described cinephile who can’t cease speaking—and writing—about movies. Paul additionally moonlights as ghostwriter and editor for just a few memoirs. He at present resides within the Philippines.