The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!

**Another interesting comedy with Leslie Nielsen.** This film is one of those comedies that established the humor of Leslie Nielsen, an actor who would become one of the most relevant in North American comedy in the 80s and 90s. His comic vein may not be to everyone's liking, with the quick succession of jokes and the very recurrent choice of nonsense or “slapstick” humor. However, we have to accept the fact that the film works and achieves the intended effect: to entertain us. The script is overall very weak and focuses on the threat to the life of Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, who is traveling to the USA on an official visit. It was strange to see the queen go to a baseball match, which the real monarch would never have done because it is not an activity that serves the interests of international diplomacy. It's nonsense at work. Even stranger was seeing an authentic “axis of evil” (which included at the same table the African dictators Idi Amin and Muhammar Gaddafi, the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, the fanatical Iranian theocrat Ayatollah Khomeini and Mr. Gorbachev, last head of the Soviet Union) decide that the most appropriate way to teach Americans a lesson was to kill the British queen. On the other hand, this round table says a lot about what was thought of each of these international leaders at this time, included in a comprehensive group of “terrorists” without any reflection on it. In the midst of all this succession of insanity and idiocy, it is really Nielsem who stands out and deserves applause for, once again, securing a solid leading role and asserting himself as a master in this style of comedy, someone who manages, in some mysterious way, make it less vulgar and cheap. Of course, most of the jokes are weak or tire us out due to non-stop sexual allusions. However, the actor manages to overcome this and show value.

Leslie Nielsen is on great form here as the hapless "Lt. Drebin" charged with the security of Queen Elizabeth on Her Majesty's forthcoming visit to Los Angeles. Unfortunately for him, criminal mastermind "Ludwig" (Ricardo Montalban) has been offered $20 million if he arranges for her assassination. Can "Drebin" and his boss "Hocken" (George Kennedy) thwart this complicated and dastardly plan? Well the Queen has just celebrated her platinum jubilee, so I guess we don't need to dwell on the jeopardy here. What we do have, right from the start, are some fun slapstick scenarios that see our accident prone hero cause chaos and mayhem as he manages to wreck just about every state occasion lined up for their visitor by mayor Nancy Marchand, whilst falling in love with the menacing baddie's girlfriend "Jane" (Priscilla Presley). The dialogue is pithy and entertaining - if at times a little puerile, and both Nielsen and Presley have great timing as this calamitous series of scenarios build to a suitably daft conclusion with an on-form Montalban. Along the way the score and the script manage to parody quite a few other films and that raises a smile too. At times, the humour is a little close to the politically correct bone - smutty, even - so I doubt very much it would ever be made nowadays - but, of it's time, it's actually quite enjoyable.

"The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!" continues the tradition established by the enormously successful "Airplane!" (1980) and it is a fast paced comedy where the unceasing stream of wacky and off-beat humour works a treat. The filmmakers have turned their attention to cop movies for inspiration this time around and instead of lampooning such films the ridiculous set-piece sequences on offer here are broader in nature and they don't really reference any film releases of the period at all, but this doesn't particularly matter because the vast array of visual and verbal gags come at such a rate you never really have much of an opportunity to analyse whether they hit the intended target or not and a second viewing confirms they really do.