The Naked Gun

Fans of the Airplane team (and especially of their short-lived TV series Police Squad, by which this gloriously tacky spoof cop-thriller is inspired) will know that corny old gags, hoary clichés, and downright silliness can, if delivered in the right spirit, provide far more fun than any amount of Merchant-Ivory bons mots or Woody Allen witticisms. As ever, sophistication is conspicuously absent as tactless, dim-witted Lt Frank Drebin (Nielsen) investigates the shooting of a cop during a ludicrously audacious drugs bust. One hesitates even to attempt a synopsis of the admirably perfunctory plot, other than that suspects include a delirously plastic Priscilla Presley and a magnificently corseted Montalban. Ineptitude rules throughout. Finally, though, it's Nielsen's show: with an unaccountable flair for the needlessly dramatic, he holds the entire shambling absurdity together by treating everything as if it were a matter of life or death. The endlessly tasteless juvenilia should make you ashamed of laughing yourself into a stupor.