Director: Peter Segal
Cast: Leslie Nielsen, Priscilla Presley, George Kennedy, O.J. Simpson
Have I Seen It Before?: I wrote in my review of The Naked Gun 2 1/2: The Smell of Fear (1991) that the first two films in the series had largely conflated to the point where I was not sure I had seen either of the films all the way through at all. Here, I have no memory of the film that plays out and am reasonably sure I’ve never seen it at all.
Did I like it?: And I’m not necessarily sure that I was missing much.
Things open well enough with an extended homage to Battleship Potemkin (1925). Okay, it’s actually an extended reference to The Untouchables (1987), but I’m trying to give the film credit for at least aping a film that itself was aping high art. I also spent a few moments wondering how they managed to get a camera inside of a pinball machine for the ubiquitous police siren opening titles, but sometimes its best to let the magic of cinema wash over you.
From there, I’m witness to only a few moments of mirth. In fact, the biggest laugh the film got out of me was a throw-away gag where the words “Police Squad” were painted in different directions on a door window, so that only one words looked backwards. The non-sequiturs fly amusingly at the climax staged against the Academy Awards, but that’s slim pickings, if you ask me. Just a few lines from Anna Nicole Smith, and I’m immediately stuck by how much I underestimated Priscilla Presley’s competence as a film actress. It definitely doesn’t help that it is revealed at the end that her character has a penis, which inspires Drebin to become physical sick. With this film and Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (1994), what the hell was with 1994? That doesn’t even begin to cover the O.J. Simpson of it all.
One can’t help but wonder if this film was the first step in the long slow decline that was the career of Leslie Nielsen. Oh well, we’ll always have Airplane (1980) and for that matter, Forbidden Planet (1956).