Based off the widely popular comedy franchise The Naked Gun and television series “Police Squad!” by Jim Abrahams and David Zucker and Jerry Zucker. Only one man has the particular set of skills… to lead Police Squad and save the world! A film by Akiva Schaffer, starring Liam Neeson, Pamela Anderson, Paul Walter Hauser, CCH Pounder, Kevin Durand, Cody Rhodes, Liza Koshy, Eddie Yu, and Danny Huston.
THE NAKED GUN
Akiva Schaffer
(2025)
During an active bank robbery, SWAT team leader (Judd Lormand) watches in disbelief as a little girl (Sailor Luna Bunch) clutching a rainbow lollipop walks straight through the front entrance.
Inside, the armed robbers are startled by her unexpected presence. The gunman (John Santiago) is confused and asks what the girl wants. But the girl isn’t what she seems. She’s actually Lieutenant Frank Drebin Jr. (Liam Neeson) in an elaborate disguise.
In a matter of seconds, the “girl” transforms back into a full-grown man and effortlessly takes down the entire crew, freeing all the hostages in the process. What Frank doesn’t realize is that he’s just fallen for a clever ruse. The whole robbery was nothing more than a distraction.
While Frank was busy playing hero, Sig Gustafson (Kevin Durand) was breaking into a safety deposit box in the vault, making off with a mysterious device labeled “P.L.O.T. DEVICE” He slips out of the bank completely undetected and delivers the device to his boss.
Back at the Los Angeles Police Squad, Chief Davis (CCH Pounder) is furious with Frank and his partner Ed Hocken Jr. (Paul Walter Hauser) after getting an earful from the mayor. She tells them that lawyers representing the bank robbers Frank put in the hospital are now suing the city. They’re even threatening to shut down Police Squad altogether. Tired of the constant trouble Frank causes, Chief Davis pulls him off the bank case and reassigns him to a collision case instead.
Before heading out, Frank and Ed stop by the Hall of Legends within Police Squad to pay their respects to their late fathers, Frank Drebin (Leslie Nielsen) and Ed Hocken (George Kennedy). Other officers are there too, paying tribute to their own deceased fathers, including Nordberg Jr. (Moses Jones), who simply stares at his father Fred Nordberg’s (O.J. Simpson) portrait and shakes his head disapprovingly. Kneeling down on one knee before his father’s portrait, Frank opens up and asks for a sign, maybe making him see an owl, anything to show that his dad is proud of what he’s become.
O.J. Simpson was part of the original cast of “The Naked Gun” film series. He played the role of Detective Nordberg in the original 1988 film as well as in the sequels released in 1991 and 1994. O.J. Simpson was charged with the murders of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman. Both were stabbed to death outside Nicole Brown Simpson’s condominium on 12 June 1994. He was arrested after a highly publicized police chase on 17 June 1994, which ended at his Brentwood estate where he eventually surrendered to authorities.
Later, Frank and Ed arrive at the crash site in Malibu, where they find the wreckage of an EdenTech’s electric car and learn that the deceased driver is Simon Davenport (Jason MacDonald). While inspecting the scene, Frank discovers a mysterious black matchbook with a silver Bengal tiger printed on it. After examining all the evidence, Frank rules the incident a suicide.
Back at Police Squad, Detective Barnes (Liza Koshy) approaches Frank for advice on the bank robbery case. She tells him she’s noticed some strange things that don’t add up: none of the thieves had ever met each other before, they had no idea who they were working for, and they were told they could keep the cash they stole. Frank suggests that whoever orchestrated the robbery must have been after something else. He advises Barnes to bring in one of the bank robbers for questioning.
When Frank gets to his office, he finds Beth Davenport (Pamela Anderson) waiting for him. Frank is immediately captivated by her. Beth quickly gets to the point, saying Frank’s report, which ruled her brother Simon’s death a suicide, is wrong.
I write true crime novels based on fictional stories that I make up.
She’s convinced he was murdered. Beth explains that Simon called her the night before, sounding like he was in trouble and wanting to meet the next morning. Now he’s dead. Beth reveals Simon worked as a programmer for Richard Cane and suggests Frank should go talk to Cane.
Richard Cane (Danny Huston) first made his fortune in microprocessors, then used that wealth to build an empire spanning online retail and green technology. When Frank visits Cane to question him about Davenport, he becomes suspicious after seeing that Cane carries the same distinctive matchbook Frank found in the crashed car. However, Cane casually explains it’s from Bengal, his exclusive supper club for the city’s elite.
The next day, Frank receives an Eden Vox 1, a fully automated self-driving electric vehicle, sent to him specifically by Cane. Meanwhile, Detective Barnes brings a bank robber into an interrogation room, hoping he’ll shed some light on the real target, which clearly wasn’t cash.
Eventually, the bank robber (Busta Rhymes) admits that whoever hired them for the heist only wanted access to a particular safe deposit box. This makes Frank remember that Box 595 had been busted open, but he didn’t think much of it at the time. Ed checks the list and confirms the box belonged to Simon Davenport. Frank then realizes these two seemingly unrelated incidents, the bank robbery and the car crash, are actually connected. Richard Cane is at the center of it all.
At the EdenTech conference room, Cane unveils Project Inferno. He intends to eradicate those he considers “unworthy” humans by deploying a Primordial Law Of Toughness Device. He explains that the device broadcasts an audio frequency that reduces the brain to its animalistic core, reverting victims to their primal state. As the signal spreads through smart devices globally, Cane and his chosen allies will shelter in a fortified bunker until the chaos subsides. Once it’s over, they’ll emerge to join the survivors and rebuild civilization, positioning themselves as the founding fathers of a new world order.
Directed by American filmmaker Akiva Schaffer and written by Dan Gregor, Doug Mand, and Schaffer, THE NAKED GUN is an action-crime comedy and the fourth installment in The Naked Gun franchise. The story follows an LAPD Police Squad officer who stumbles upon a clue in an ongoing investigation, leading him to uncover a sinister plot that threatens to disrupt civilization itself.
While the film is loaded with references and easter eggs that may not land for viewers unfamiliar with Leslie Nielsen’s original Naked Gun movies, it delivers some brilliant comedy gold. The standout sequence is an epic spoof of Mission: Impossible – Fallout (yes, the best M:I film) where they trick Sig Gustafson into revealing his employer’s evil plan while he’s supposedly recovering in a hospital room.
The scene gets even funnier as the walls literally collapse, revealing they’re actually in a warehouse filled with technicians who’ve been recording everything. But it doesn’t stop there. In another hilarious twist, this “warehouse” is itself fake as it’s built inside yet another warehouse. And that’s still not the end of the nested deception.
The film is also packed with hilariously absurd gags that defy all logic. Frank Drebin Jr. can inexplicably transform into a little girl, or somehow always have someone hand him a cup of coffee even while speeding down the highway. It’s the kind of nonsensical comedy that doesn’t need explanation.
Among the standout scenes are the police trying to use a claw machine to lift a wrecked car, only to watch it slip through. Another memorable moment features Frank casually ripping off a guy’s arms and then using those very arms to slap the poor victim. There’s also a genuinely weird sequence where Frank and Beth Davenport are terrorized by a killer snowman.
However, the film stumbles when it comes to its central plot. The villain’s master plan feels disappointingly familiar. It’s just essentially lifted straight from 2014’s Kingsman: The Secret Service. Both films revolve around a device that turns ordinary people murderously violent, with the only real difference being that this version swaps out Kingsman’s implanted chips for simple earplugs to protect the bad guys from their own signal.
For a franchise built on creative lunacy, borrowing another film’s central plot feels surprisingly lazy. I was hoping for something more inventive than recycling Kingsman’s core concept.
THE NAKED GUN premiered at the SVA Theater on 18 July 2025. The film was theatrically released in the United States on 1 August.
