I’LL be honest, I wasn’t expecting much from The Naked Gun remake. A reboot of the classic 1988 crime-action comedy of the same name, the film – which is currently showing at Cineworld Jersey – stars Liam Neeson as Frank Drebin Jr, a character who is the son of Frank Drebin, the police detective played by the late, great Leslie Nielsen in the original Naked Gun trilogy.
When the film was first announced, I found myself putting my head in my hands and saying: “Oh no, not another bloody remake of a classic film!
“Is Hollywood really this devoid of original ideas?
“Why am I talking to myself?”
I was especially sceptical of the casting of Neeson. He’s an actor I admire, but the erstwhile Oscar Schindler seems to have spent much of the last decade coasting in undemanding action flicks, and I doubted he possessed the comedy skills or the motivation to fill the boots of the mighty Nielsen. They’ve only cast him because “Liam Neeson” sounds a bit like “Leslie Nielsen” thought I.
But do you know what, readers? I was wrong. I went to watch The Naked Gun with a couple of friends last week and, well, I can’t remember the last time I laughed so much in the cinema. It’s a comedy that is actually – gasp! – funny.
Much as Leslie Nielsen would remain deadpan no matter what mayhem was unfolding around him on-screen, Liam Neeson likewise plays it (almost) entirely straight, as if he is acting in another Taken movie. This only makes everything all the more funny, especially when he delivers lines such as this in his gruff Irish brogue: “She had a body that could carry her head and a butt that seemed to say ‘Hello, I’m a talking butt’.”
And, hey, who knew Pamela Anderson was such a gifted comedienne? (No wonder Neeson found himself so smitten with his co-star – the pair are rumoured to be dating).
Sure, the new Naked Gun isn’t a patch on the 1988 original, being far more hit-and-miss in its humour, but it is at least as funny as, say, Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult (1994), with the same scattershot approach to puns, pratfalls and sight gags.
The jokes come so thick and fast that, even if only one in ten gags actually raises a laugh, there are still more guaranteed giggles than you will find in any number of modern-day big-screen comedies. Certainly, I laughed more in the opening scene alone than I have watching anything Seth Rogan has produced over the last decade.
Hopefully, the success of The Naked Gun will mark a welcome return for mainstream comedy films that are actually, you know, funny.
And, on that note, here are what I would consider the 20 greatest – and thus the 20 funniest – comedy films of all time. Disagree? Write in and let me know:
Thomas@Allisland.Media. Be sure to mark your email: “Surely you can’t be serious?”
20) Four Lions (2010, Chris Morris)
19) This Is Spinal Tap (1984, Rob Reiner)
18) Bringing Up Baby (1938, Howard Hawks)
17) Way Out West (1937, James W Horne)
16) Groundhog Day (1993, Harold Ramis)
15) The Big Lebowski (1998, Joel and Ethan Coen)
14) The Odd Couple (1968, Gene Saks)
13) Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987, John Hughes)
12) Withnail and I (1987, Bruce Robinson)
11) Tropic Thunder (2008, Ben Stiller)
10) Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975, Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones)
9) Some Like It Hot (1959, Billy Wilder)
8) The Naked Gun (1988, David Zucker)
7) Blazing Saddles (1974, Mel Brooks)
6) Monty Python’s Life of Brian (1979, Terry Jones)
5) The Music Box (1932, James Parrott)
4) The Man with Two Brains (1983, Carl Reiner)
Long before he focused his career on starring in schmaltzy rom-coms and recording bluegrass banjo albums, Steve Martin appeared in a series of comedy films – all released in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and all directed by Carl Reiner – that remain among the craziest, most surreal and flat-out funniest movies ever made.
All of the Martin-Reiner collaborations have much to recommend them, but, for me, the funniest film – indeed, the funniest film of Martin’s entire career – is 1983’s The Man with Two Brains.
Co-written by Martin, Reiner and George Gipe, the madcap movie stars Martin as Dr Michael Hfuhruhurr (“It sounds just the way it’s spelled”), a brilliant brain surgeon and the pioneer of cranial “screw-top” surgery. Grieving over the loss of his wife, Dr Hfuhruhurr unwisely marries scheming gold-digger Dolores Benedict (Kathleen Turner, thoroughly enjoying sending up her smouldering screen image), but things grow complicated when the good doctor finds himself simultaneously falling in love with Anne Uumellmahaye, a disembodied brain residing in the laboratory of David Warner’s mad scientist.
The film is, if anything, even more bonkers than that synopsis makes it sound, but it is also wickedly clever, with more laugh-out-loud one-liners and wild physical comedy in single scenes than some comedies manage across two hours. It also features arguably the finest poem ever written, Pointy Birds: “Oh pointy birds, oh pointy pointy/Anoint my head, anointy-nointy”.
3) Dr Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964, Stanley Kubrick)
Considering Stanley Kubrick is often characterised as being among the most serious-minded and methodical filmmakers in cinema, it’s notable just how funny so many of his films are. Hell, even The Shining and A Clockwork Orange have their fair share of laughs between the tidal waves of blood and “ultra-violence”. But never was a Kubrick film funnier than with Dr Strangelove.
Based on author Peter George’s non-comedic 1958 novel Red Alert, the jet-black satire depicts events leading up to a global nuclear apocalypse, which admittedly doesn’t sound overly amusing on paper. The resultant film, however, is among the funniest ever made, thanks to an endlessly quotable screenplay (“Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here! This is the war room”), wildly OTT supporting turns from the likes of George C Scott and Sterling Hayden, and, above all, a trio of pitch-perfect performances by an Oscar-nominated Peter Sellers. The British character actor plays the wheelchair-using title character (“Mein Führer! I can walk!”), uptight RAF officer Lionel Mandrake and out-of-his-depth US President Merkin Muffley.
2) Airplane! (1980, David and Jerry Zucker)
With an estimated 178 gags packed into its 87-minute running time, Airplane! is surely the single most joke-filled film in cinema history.
Watched today, it’s incredible just how well the vast majority of the gags – both verbal and physical – remain laugh-out-loud funny, with only a small handful of references to then-relevant political events failing to hit the mark (and even these were probably hilarious at the time).
In addition to the pun-filled screenplay, Airplane! also raises laughs with its cast, which largely consists of old-school Hollywood actors who would typically be found in serious dramas and thrillers (Leslie Nielsen, Lloyd Bridges, Peter Graves, Robert Stack), and who all play it (mostly) straight, which in turn only makes the jokes even funnier.
1) Sons of the Desert (1933, William A Seiter)
Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy are, of course, the funniest comedy duo ever to have walked the Earth, and Sons of the Desert is – in the opinion of this life-long fan – the funniest of their many big-screen outings.
The feature-length film sees Ollie feigning illness to his domineering wife in order that he and Stan can attend the annual convention of a fraternal society of which they are members. Suffice to say, all does not go according to plan…
As always, the actual storyline is entirely secondary to the witty wordplay, comic pratfalls and exasperated looks to camera, with the scene in which the pair hide from their suspicious wives in the attic a particular highlight.
The official directing credit may well read William A Seiter, and the writing credit Frank Craven, but everyone knows that it was really Arthur Stanley Jefferson – aka Stan Laurel – who was the real driving force and comic mastermind behind the pair’s greatest work, and such was the case with Sons of the Desert.
A comic masterpiece.
