The Naked Gun

The Naked Gun is being rebooted with Liam Neeson playing the lead. A film franchise known for comedy that is at once raunchy, slapstick, and tongue-in-cheek, this trailer cleverly flips trailer music conventions on their head for a laugh. Its microteaser features the sound of a siren, as Frank Drebin Jr (Neeson, as the son of the cop played by Leslie Nielsen in the original films) gets passed a cup of coffee as if through a drive-through window. At 0:05, we see the skyline of Los Angeles at night and hear a single high register piano note, a familiar action thriller trailer trope. Martial drum rhythms come in at 0:10, as we see a motorcycle chase accompanied by Neeson’s seemingly serious voice-over. But the music cuts out at 0:14 to make space for the squelch of the Monty Python-esque adversary’s arms being ripped off mid-fight.

At 0:20, as Drebin gives himself a dramatic James Bond-esque introduction, there is a riser (a technique trailers often borrow from EDM), which transforms at 0:24 to the sound of a car approaching at high speed. This is when we hear the “Woop, woop!” chorus hook from “Sound of da Police,” a 1993 track by New York rapper KRS-One. The Paramount Pictures animated logo slams into the mountain skyline on the beat at 0:26 to close out the fast car sound effect.

Another riser ushers in, at 0:30, the drum groove from KRS-One’s song. Drebin is having a moment with a photo of his Dad (Nielsen’s character, Drebin Sr.). We cut to silence at 0:36 when the son of Nordberg (O.J. Simpson’s character from the original films) looks at the photo of his dad and shakes his head.

At 0:38 the sound of an approaching car segues back into KRS-One’s drum groove. Cleverly, Drebin’s gunshots at 0:47 are synched to the beat of this drum groove. At 0:56 we get a KRS-One sample from the end of verse 1: “We be getting’ hyped to the sound of da police.” But it’s a musical red herring, because here we transition not back into “Sound of da Police” but instead into some standard-fare suspenseful orchestral music, which builds the intensity. And it cuts again to silence for the first comic bit from Beth (Pamela Anderson) at 1:04. The music sequences again, orchestral build followed by a cut to silence at 1:13, leaving space for Busta Rhymes’ punchline in an interrogation with Drebin. This moment serves a nice parallel with the lyrics in the verses of “Sound of da Police”— we have the wise rappers and clueless cops.

Then the musical worlds collide at 1:16, with the drum groove from KRS-One remixed with the suspenseful orchestral strings and brass. The next cut to silence, at 1:28, is synched to the cocking of guns. After another comic interlude, KRS-One is back at 1:32 and now we get to enjoy a line of rap from verse 1 as Drebin’s gunshots (through his own windshield!) are synched to the beat of the song.

We cut to silence once again at 1:37 for some sexual innuendo, accompanied by KRS-One’s “Woop, woop!” chorus hook and some trailer triplets. The trailer is nearly complete here, and it brings back the “Sound of da police” lyric three times, as Drebin’s punches are now synched to the drum groove (1:46). There’s another cut to silence at 1:58 when Drebin enters the bank heist disguised as a young girl. The “Sound of da police” lyric is sampled, cut up and repeated as Drebin attacks the robbers with a rainbow swirl lollipop.

To sum it up, this trailer takes predictable comedy trailer music techniques–a remixed catchy retro hit song, repetitive cuts to silence, punch lines, action synched to the beat–and overuses them to the point of parody. The Naked Gun is in theatres August 1st.

— Jack Hui Litster