Anna Nicole Smith | Through the Shattered Lens

Mad bomber Rollo Dillon (Fred Ward) has been hired by terrorists to bomb a major American institution. Captain Ed Hocken (George Kennedy) and Detective Nordberg (O.J. Simpson) know that there’s only one man who can handle this job and his name is Frank Drebin (Leslie Nielsen). Frank, however, has retired from Police Squad and promised his wife, Jane (Priscilla Presley), that he is through with police work.

At heart, Frank remains a cop. He even dreams of shoot-outs. When he tries to do police work without Jane noticing, it backfires on him. Even though Frank lies and claims that he’s just having an affair, Jane leaves him. Frank, with nothing better to do, goes into prison undercover to gain Rollo’s confidence. After Rollo and Frank escape, Frank discovers that Rollo and his girlfriend (Anna Nicole Smith) is planning on bombing the Academy Awards!

The Naked Gun 33 1/3 is the weakest of the original Police Squad films, which is to say that it’s still pretty funny, even if some of the jokes no longer feel as fresh as they did in the previous films. It opens with a brilliant send-up of the shoot-out from The Untouchables and it ends with a perfect parody of the Academy Awards. (Pia Zadora singing This Could Be The Start Of Something Big is funny because it’s exactly the sort of thing that used to happen at the Oscars.) It’s in the middle section that the film drags, though there are still things that made me laugh, like a flashback to Frank, Ed, and Nordberg in the 70s. David Zucker did not return to direct this installment and his absence is definitely felt.

Leslie Nielsen is as funny as ever and he’s well-matched with George Kennedy and Priscila Presley. (OJ Simpson’s presence is as awkward as ever.) Fred Ward plays his villainous role straight, a smart move. But then you’ve got Anna Nicole Smith, who was such a terrible actress that her presence in the film doesn’t even work as a joke. Whenever Smith shows up, the film grinds to a halt. It’s the worst type of stunt casting.

This was Leslie Nielsen final performance as Frank Drebin. Even in a lesser film, he was still a comedic treasure.

If you want to see a movie about somone trapped in a skyscraper and battling terrorists, the obvious solution is to watch Die Hard. After all, it’s always a good time to watch Die Hard.

If for some reason you cannot watch Die Hard, then I recommend trying Die Hard 2.

If Die Hard 2 is not available, I guess you could watch something like Skyscraper.

Skyscraper is a by-the-numbers remake of Die Hard, except that the Bruce Willis role is now played by Anna Nicole Smith. Anna Nicole is a helicopter pilot who is hired by a group of strange men to give them an aerial tour of the city. What Anna Nicole does not realize is that these men are all terrorists and she is flying them to the skyscraper that they are planning on taking over. Unlike Bruce, Anna Nicole does not get to say much during this movie. She doesn’t get to say “Yippie ki yay, motherfucker,” or anything else that might liven things up. Instead, she takes a shower, has one lame sex scene, and then spends the rest of the movie crawling through air ducts and shooting terrorists. The few times that she does have to actually speak, she is about as convincing as you would expect Anna Nicole Smith to be in the role of a tough action heroine. At one point, Anne Nicole responds to the main terrorist’s florid soliloquy by telling him that he is quoting Shakespeare and she delivers the line in such a way that you are left with little doubt that, until she showed up on the set that day, Anna Nicole Smith had never heard of this Shakespeare dude.

On second thought, if Die Hard is not available, do not watch Skyscraper. Stare at a wall for a few hours. Protect your brain cells. Skyscraper is one to avoid. If you have to resort to a Die Hard rip-off, watch Shannon Tweed and Andrew “Dice” Clay in No Contest instead.