Directed by: Peter Segal
Starring: Leslie Nielsen, Priscilla Presley, Fred Ward, Anna Nicole Smith, O.J. Simpson, George Kennedy, Weird Al Yankovic, Raquel Welch, Kathleen Freeman
Movies like The Naked Gun series are almost immune to criticism because they aren't about plots, but laughs. They throw plenty of gags at you and most are amusing enough to make the enterprise worthwhile. The third installment of Naked Gun's running time is a mere eighty minutes, which these days would account for roughly half of many movies' run times.
Leslie Nielsen, who made an entire second career making parodies such as Airplane! and The Naked Gun trilogy, once again stars as Lt. Frank Drebin, who in this installment is married to his longtime love Jane (Presley) and retired from Police Squad. His old pals Captain Ed Hocken (Kennedy) and Nordberg (Simpson) come knocking and entice Drebin into doing some undercover work at a local clinic. Drebin goes to the clinic with a faux broken arm, but learns too late it is a fertility clinic. That's the way the cookie crumbles for Drebin. Nielsen, as well as the rest of the cast, understands the best way to approach this material is straight and unaware of the craziness surrounding everything.
Soon, Drebin is on the trail of bomber Rocco (Ward), who is planning to blow up the Academy Awards. Drebin infiltrates Rocco's gang by posing as a fellow prisoner while Rocco is in the slammer. I recognize that I've already spent too much time recapping the plot, but we do need some context. I enjoyed the movie's Academy Award parody in which Pia Zadora performs a musical number and Drebin poses as Phil Donahue while trying to discover the bomb's location. This is the kind of movie where Mary Lou Retton wins an Oscar and that's not even the nuttiest thing in it. And is this Oscar ceremony nuttier than the one in The Bodyguard? It's a tight race, but the one in The Bodyguard was meant to be serious.
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