I Watch Films: The Naked Gun: From The Files Of Police Squad

 

The Naked Gun: From The Files Of Police Squad (1988)

In Beirut Frank Drebin (Leslie Nielsen) of Police Squad beats up a selection of America’s foreign enemies (Idi Amin, Gaddafi, Arafat, Ayatollah Khomeini, Castro, Gorbachev and mysterious facilitator Pahpschmir (Raye Birk)) who are plotting a terrorist outrage. He returns to Los Angeles where another member of Police Squad Nordberg (O J Simpson) has been hospitalised. He tries to tell them what happened but his cryptic clues confuse Drebin. Eventually he realises that it involves a ship owned by businessman Vincent Ludwig (Ricardo Montalban). Queen Elizabeth II is coming on a visit; Drebin is given 24 hours to clear Nordberg.

Drebin visits Ludwig, gives away that Nordberg is alive. Ludwig, a criminal, tells his non-criminal assistant Jane (Priscilla Presley) to tell Drebin what he needs to know and find out what he knows. She and Drebin then fall in love.

Ludwig is visited by Pahpschmir, who demonstrates he has a remote control that turns ordinary people into mind-controlled assassins. For $20 million he agrees to kill the Queen. He then sends a mind-controlled doctor after Nordberg but Drebin foils the attack, killing the doctor in a convoluted manner. Drebin breaks into Ludwig’s office but accidentally destroys the evidence. He confronts Ludwig at a reception for the Queen, and when Ludwig is about to present a revolutionary war musket as a gift thinks this is the assassination attempt and tackles the Queen to the ground.

Drebin and Police Squad are taken off the case. Jane discovers the assassination will take place at a baseball game by one of the players. Drebin sneaks in in disguise to foil the assassination. At the end it turns out that Jane has also been implanted with a hypnotic suggestion to kill Drebin, and he has to convince her that love is more powerful mind control.

This is a comedy, Drebin an oaf who continually makes mistakes, then stumbles over a solution. Sometimes he is a deadpan observer of an absurd world, sometimes he misunderstands (Nordberg tries to tell him it’s about drugs, and he asks the nurse to get drugs; when Nordberg specifies heroin he whispers that it’s going to take him a few days), sometimes he breaks things and tries to fix them causing yet more chaos. The film makes jokes, and mostly doesn’t linger on them, if you don’t like it another, different joke is coming along in a minute. Nielsen’s performance holds it together.

Watch This: Entertaining fast-paced police comedy
Don’t Watch This: Drebin causes chaos, wrecks things, is very stupid