Quartile rating: 7.5/10 · 1 rating
When the bumbling Lieutenant Frank Drebin investigates events following the shooting of his partner, he stumbles upon an attempt to assassinate Queen Elizabeth II.
The Naked Gun is a landmark of anarchic slapstick comedy — a relentless, machine-gun barrage of visual gags, wordplay, and absurdist non-sequiturs that remains nearly unmatched in its genre. Novelty is very high: the ZAZ team's deadpan approach to pure absurdity is instantly recognizable and singular, perfecting a comic voice unlike anything else. The ending baseball sequence is a genuinely brilliant comic set-piece, earning its own high mark. Acting is above average — Leslie Nielsen's stone-faced commitment is the engine of the whole film. The plot is deliberately thin and formulaic (by design), and the cinematography is entirely functional, serving the jokes with no visual ambition of its own.