Liam Neeson Takes the Absurd Route in Naked Gun

The unmistakable sound of “piddle-paddle” gunshots and cartoony crime-solving will be returning to movie screens soon, with the announcement of a new Naked Gun film. Set for release on August 1, 2025, The Naked Gun is getting its first sequel since 1994, with Liam Neeson stepping into the shoes of Leslie Nielsen’s late Frank Drebin. Neeson will play Drebin’s son, continuing the same slapstick, gritty parody of crime and detective work. It’s being called a “legacy sequel.”

The Naked Gun first hit theaters in 1988, starring Nielsen as well-intentioned if inept detective Frank Drebin. The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! Follows Drebin as he attempts to stop an assassination plot during Queen Elizabeth II’s U.S. visit. The film, with its wacky criminals and boldly over-the-top style, was an instant crime-comedy classic, spawning two sequels: 1991’s Naked Gun 2½: The Smell of Fear and 1994’s Naked Gun 33⅓: The Final Insult.

After Drebin prevents the Queen’s assassination in the original, The Naked Gun 2½ sees the detective attempt to stop a plot to kidnap the world’s leading nuclear scientist and use the fallout to blackmail the world’s leaders. Naked Gun 33⅓ finds Drebin returning from retirement to stop a bomb plot that threatens the Academy Awards ceremony.

The films that followed this third installment were unsuccessful, and interest in a reboot didn’t surface until 2013. Paramount attempted a relaunch that year, casting The Office star Ed Helms as “Frank Drebin, no relation.” The new film never came to fruition, though, in part due to resistance from the original Naked Gun team. David Zucker, a producer on all three original films who directed the first two, ultimately decided against getting involved with the reboot, stating that anything was “inferior” to the original material. He briefly came back to work on the project in 2017 to help revise a draft of a film where Drebin’s son is a secret agent. This version also never came to fruition.

The third time was the charm in 2021. Seth MacFarlane took on a producing role on a new version of the film, with Zucker again not on board. That’s when Liam Neeson came on board the project as Frank Drebin Jr., a lieutenant in the police department continuing his father’s legacy of sassy one-liners and crime-solving attempts.

A New Class, But Familiar Faces

Neeson won’t be the only new face in the film, though. Paul Walter Hauser will be playing Captain Ed Hocken, Jr., who Drebin Sr. paired up with in the original trilogy. Hocken Jr.’s father served as Drebin Sr.’s partner in Police Squad. Paul Walter Hauser is playing the lead role in Fantastic Four: First Steps as Mole Man, which is due out later this year. Pamela Anderson also joins the film as Beth, a femme fatale with a brother who has been murdered and no one to help solve the case. Beth’s brother’s murder is the throughline of the main mystery, with Beth enlisting Drebin Jr.’s help in solving the case; if he doesn’t, the Police Squad will be disbanded. Kevin Durand, Danny Huston, Liza Koshy, Cody Rhodes, CCH Pounder, Busta Rhymes, and Eddy Yu also round out the rest of the film’s diverse and familiar cast.

April’s first teaser didn’t exactly impress everyone. The film’s original producer, David Zucker, has long maintained a level of protection over the franchise’s original three installments, and he was less than enthused about the trailer, telling TMZ he regrets having seen the teaser and “can’t unsee it.” However, it might not be all bad. Neeson seems to be going full-throttle with the same screwball vibe that made the originals work, aiming for his icy “particular set of skills” persona that he’s come to be known for after his Taken films. In one particular scene, Neeson yells, “Once you kill a man for revenge, there’s no going back!” before tearing the arms off an attacker and using them as weapons. He then finishes his dramatic diatribe, “A voice in your head saying over and over ‘That was awesome.’”

The trailer also contains some tearjerker moments. Frank and Ed Jr. get misty-eyed in front of commemorative plaques that honor their fathers, a nostalgic nod to the film’s predecessors.

As befitting of a Naked Gun film, the plot serves more as a backdrop for the jokes than an actual purpose, but it is of some importance to the development of the story. Beth enlists Drebin Jr. to help solve her brother’s murder when he can’t find a more experienced detective to take the case. He has one week to solve the case or the Police Squad will be shut down. As usual, the men of the Naked Gun come up with a solution in characteristically absurd ways. The stakes aren’t too high for a stereotypically off-the-books secret agent, as lines like “I did 20 years for man’s laughter” are met with Drebin replying, “Must have been quite the joke” when it’s corrected to “manslaughter.”

From commandeering a coffee shop bathroom for “police business” to dryly comedic one-liners taken straight from an 80s action flick, Neeson is more than ready for action and possibly falling.

The comedy in The Naked Gun never quite suited everyone. It’s unforgivably broad and pun-heavy, a style of humor that doesn’t hold itself to the same metrics of wit as more intellectual comedy. It’s silly, and that’s what people came to love from the originals. If the trailer is any indication, The Naked Gun 2025 should provide just the right sort of vacuous fun in time for summer.