Frank Drebin and a Lion Save the Planet from Robert Goulet

A (Kinda) Genre Approach to The Naked Gun 2 1/2 (1991)

The Naked Gun 2 ½: The Smell of Fear (1991) – Genre (Kinda)

I saw so many films this week and they were all great. First, my birthday was on Monday, so my husband and I went to a little arthouse cinema to see a new indie film called Bad Shabbos, and it was hilarious. Highly recommend, especially if you love Jewish humor. David Paymer is just perfect. Later in the week we were hosting some friends and watched Raising Arizona (1987) which I had never seen before but what a phenomenal comedy and commentary on Reaganomics. Then we headed back to a cinema to see The Fantastic Four: First Steps which I enjoyed very much mostly for the retrofuturistic world they built. That’s a film where the background and implications of an alternate history are almost more interesting for me than the story. And after each of these films, I had such fulfilling conversations with the people around me, sharing our experiences of the films and interpretations of them. What an absolute pleasure, almost better than popcorn. I hope you have opportunities to reflect on the films you watch and share those thoughts and feelings and reactions with people you trust to challenge your perspective. That’s that good shit.

Amidst all these, I also watched The Naked Gun 2 ½: The Smell of Fear (1991) and decided that it would be our first sequel on Review Roulette. I wasn’t going to review it when we started watching, truthfully because last week’s review on the first Naked Gun was quite difficult to write, but I was inspired during the film to think about its place in the franchise. So, deciding for the wheel, this week we’re going to look at David Zucker’s The Naked Gun 2 ½ in comparison especially to the first one, which is kind of a Genre approach, but mostly just a comparative study. For this one, it would help if you read last week’s review of the first film, but I’ll cover the gist here.

So, the first Naked Gun is so successful as a comedy, in my opinion, because it’s not a comedy. It’s a drama first and foremost that gilds its dramatic beats with comedy, which in turn elevates the comedy because it’s so unexpected in those moments. When we expect a tense first encounter between the detective and bad guy, we have the floor drop out beneath us with an off-the-wall parallel sequence of Frank Drebin (Leslie Nielsen) killing a fish. The dramatic timing is comedy gold. The jokes largely have nothing to do with the plot because such a wild diversion from the story makes the gap between expectation and delivery so wide you can’t help but laugh.

The second Naked Gun, on the other hand, takes a different approach. The film is still a drama punctuated by comedy, but the jokes are themed to the plot. Almost every joke – from throwaway one-liners to visual gags and longer sequences – is in favor of environmental action or a commentary on the lack thereof. The plot centers on an oil executive, Quentin Hapsburg (Robert Goulet), who leads a cabal of dirty energy providers – atomic, coal, and petroleum CEOs – in a plot to kidnap a climate and clean energy scientist seemingly at the behest of George H. W. Bush’s Chief of Staff. The energy lobby is portrayed as inhumane businessmen whose only concerns are about profit and maintaining power and good favor in the administration.

For a mainstream comedy following up a film about an assassination plot against Queen Elizabeth for literally no discernible reason, the sequel is incredibly earnest in both its plot and comedy. It might be charitable, but it seems as if the writing team knew they had an impressionable, young audience hooked and wanted to use the sequel to send a solid political message embedded in an even better film. This film is pointed, witty, and researched while still able to poke fun at itself and its audience such as in the scene when the scientist (Richard Griffiths) is giving a dry speech on environmental impacts of dirty energy to a sleeping audience who can only be roused by his recitation of an erotic novel. It’s a sharp joke about how the only way to get these environmental messages through is to dress them up with sex and comedy. And this was 1991.

Also, maybe I’m jaded, but I felt it was refreshing that a comedy was earnestly trying to get people to care about the environment in such a creative way instead of dunking on people who care about climate change as woke nerds. It’s a film that makes a throwaway joke about Lake Erie smelling like a dumpster from decades of pollution but also backs that up with a plot pointing the finger at corruption in Washington. Or in a longer recurring source of comedy, Drebin unleashes a zoo on the capital. When asked if he is aware that because of him the town is being overrun with baboons, Drebin replies “isn’t that the fault of the voters?” The loose animals also provide the best karma in the film when Robert Goulet, our big game hunting oil executive, is eaten by a lion.

The film is so thoughtful about its messaging and streamlines nearly every joke into a consistent political stance while maintaining that excellent balance between comedic elements punctuating a dramatic structure. Two dramatic lines Drebin delivers at the climax and end of the film best highlight the thoughtfulness and effectiveness of the film’s messaging. Firstly, in the final stand off between Drebin and Goulet (pre-lion), Drebin says, “Go ahead and threaten me just like you have the American people all these years” in a very direct political statement that energy lobbyists are a violent threat to our society, something we know all too clearly 34 years later. Secondly, to Priscilla Presley, Drebin says, “Love is like the ozone layer, you never miss it until it’s gone” as part of a longer speech on lamenting their lost romance and pining for a second chance, a sentiment that elevates the film’s overall message on our need to correct our environmental policy, take action, and feed CEOs to lions.

Overall, I really loved this film as a stand alone and as a sequel. I think it did its familiar thing while being even more purposeful and thoughtful in its comedic and dramatic executions. I’m eager to watch The Naked Gun 33 ⅓ to see how the series progresses, and you might just be subjected to a third review in the franchise because I hear that one centers on a Hollywood plot. We shall see, but for now, I recommend a rewatch of the second for the soul.