"Is There a Cop to Save the World?": The Refreshing Return of a Heroic Jerk Starring Liam Neeson

THE OPINION OF THE “WORLD” – TO SEE

Following in the footsteps of the master of bad parody Mel Brooks, the triad formed by David Zucker, Jim Abrahams (1944-2024) and Jerry Zucker, three childhood friends from Wisconsin, abbreviated by the acronym ZAZ, carried the torch of American comedy high. Inaugurating their success in 1980 with a hilarious parody of air disaster movies – Airplane? – the trio signed, from 1988, a trilogy Is there a cop for…? ( The Naked Gun , in the original version) starring the Canadian actor Leslie Nielsen (1926-2010). He plays Inspector Frank Drebin of the Los Angeles police, a sort of incompetent imbecile full of compunction, assisted by his faithful Nordberg.

The spirit of the ZAZ, which spread across the planet at the time and influenced many comedians without ever seeing their perfection equaled, was a mixture of fine cinephilia, burlesque acceleration, extreme zaniness, unbridled crudeness and unlimited humor (sexual obsession, farting, scatophilia, masturbation, pedophilia, etc.). Its genealogy is not limited, moreover, to Mel Brooks. It passes through the most unbridled spirit of American non-seriousness, from the legendary canon that is Hellzapoppin (HC Potter, 1941) to Jerry Lewis (1926-2017), via Tex Avery (1908-1980). A spirit, therefore, which would today be considered anachronistic, even more surely incongruous.

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