Mr. Wydey's Film Guide Letter N

The Naked Gun: From The Files of Police Squad! (1988) is the first of a series and a great film if you like Police Squad!'s brand of silliness. It starts in Beirut, where Gadaffy, Idi Amin, an Ayatollah and all America's other enemies are foiled by Lt. Frank Drebbin. The titles were played on an extended rampaging police car sequence. Then back to LA, where the unfortunate Detective Nordberg was marmalyzed by bad guys on a ship and ended up in hospital.
   Victoria has left Drebbin. Fun at Nordberg's bedside. Police Squad! is in charge of security for Queen Elizabeth's visit to LA. Drebbin is also investigating the drug angle to Nordberg's shooting. Fun & games in the head bad guy's office. Mr. Ludwig gives the gullible Jane the job of checking up on Drebbin. Fun at the police science lab.
   Ludwig can hypnotize people into becoming assassins. More pain for Nordberg and a chase in a learner driver's car with some HUGE explosions! Athletics at Drebbin's apartment and a wonderful day for Frank & Jane. Drebbin wrecks Ludwig's office while burgling it and has fun on a ledge outside the building. A shoot-out at the stock yard. Drebbin crashes a reception on the night of the assassination.
   Drebbin dumps Jane and gets to know Her Majesty very well indeed! So he gets the sack. Jane tells Drebbin the Queen will be knocked off at the ball game. Frank replaces the guy doing the national anthem then the umpire, which lets him frisk the players for weapons. The assassin gets Ludwig's signal, so Drebbin starts a riot and saves the Queen. Ludwig does a high dive and gets well squashed!
   Jane gets a signal to kill Frank but he talks her out of it. Drebbin is promoted to captain and more pain for Nordberg to finish.

The Naked Gun 2½: The Smell of Fear (1991) Mrs. Bush, the white-haired wife of President George Bush Sr. gets the first of a series of roughing-ups at a dinner for Lt. Frank Drebbin, who is being honoured for killing 1,000 dealers. Serving lobster was a big mistake! More rogue police car titles. A bomb goes off at the Institute where Jane, who didn't marry Frank, works for wheelchair-bound Prof. Meinheimer (Richard Griffiths), the president's energy advisor.
   The conventional energy companies are conspiring to prevent the professor from putting them out of business with renewable energy sources, and they have a double. Poor old Nordberg gets dragged about under the bad guys' van, Frank's car and a bus to Detroit. Fun with Frank in a tank at a siege, then more fun at another reception.
   Fun in Jane's bathroom with Frank and a killer, who explodes! Frank breaks into the bad guys' lair through the roof and Prof. Meinheimer barely survives the rescue. Frank & Co. crash the president's ball as a Mexican band. The bogus prof.is zapped and Frank sands the real one's butt! A big shoot-out and the bad guy flees, only to meet a sticky end before he can give Frank the abort code for a bomb.
   Frank neutralizes the bomb by accident. Then he turns down the job of head of a new Federal Bureau of Police Squad in favour of marrying Jane.

The Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult (1994) got 3 stars and a diamond in the Daily Mail Weekend magazine and a fair old hammering from other humourless sods who do reviews. It was a long time since I last saw it and I was able to enjoy it for what it is – not great art but a sequence of jokes and parodies of classic film moments. That's all it is, guys, just fun and the plot and the framework are irrelevant.
A top terrorist is planning to break out of gaol for a $5M job, Lt. Drebin has retired and Mrs. Drebin is desperate for a kid. Police Squad ask Frank to go undercover, he ends up in a fertility clinic and Mrs. D's romantic evening is a flop. So she leaves him. Frank ends up in the prison next. Lots of fun & games, including a riot in the mess hall, and he helps the terrorist to escape.
Meanwhile, Jane finds that she done Frank wrong and she just happens to walk into the terrorists' hideout. The plan is to blow up the Oscars ceremony, so lots of fun & games there. Only the bad guys get blown up and 9 months later, more fun & games at the maternity hospital.

Narrow Margin (1990) stars Gene Hackman as Deputy DA Caulfield, who pursues a woman to Canada. She fled there after seeing her blind date shot to death with an L.A. gang boss looking on. Caulfield tracks her down to a cabin, which is shot to bits. His detective companion is killed, as is the pilot of their helicopter.
After a mad drive down a wooded mountain, Caulfield and the woman end up on a train pursued by 2 hitmen and a woman as there is a rat in the DA's office in L.A. But once Caulfield gets the bad guys on the roof of the train, everything works out and the story ended up in a courtroom with the gang boss feeling the collar of his shirt tightening around his throat.

National Treasure (2007) A story of hidden treasure is passed down Ben's family. As a man, he and his criminal mate Ian find a ship stranded in ice and in the hold, one of a string of clues to a great treasure. There's an invisible map on the back of the Declaration of Independence, so Ian decides to steal it and Ben blows the ship up.
   The FBI, Homeland Security and Ms Chase of the National Archive think Ben is telling them a silly story. So he decides to nick the DoI; and chooses to do so on the same night when Ian arrives with his Delta Force. Next, Ben has to get access to some letters, which his dad donated to the Franklin Institute.
   Ian catches up with Ben & Ms Chase and gets the DoI, but not the trick specs needed to see the map. Off to New York next. The Feds are hovering but Ian kidnaps Ben's dad to ensure he co-operates. Everyone sets off down a 200-year-old staircase; which promptly collapses.
   Ben's dad scams Ian, who abandons his prisoners deep under Trinity Church. Ben finds the treasure room but it's empty. No, there's a door to more treasure than you can shake a stick at. And Ian is busted in Boston, hunting down the false clue from Ben's dad.

Nature Unleashed: Earthquake (2004) is a 21st century disaster film which doesn't blame climate change. Josh is sent to Russia to sort out a team retrofitting a Russian nuclear reactor. Problem 1, it's in an active earthquake zone. Problem 2, his ex-wife Rachel is in charge and she has their 2 appalling kids with them. Problem 3, the Russian bloke in charge of the whole mess looks like he was the head of the team which made such a success of Chernobyl.
   The foundations of the reactor are crumbling, the Russian boss is running the plants without safety checks and the computer's safety protocoms don't work. The son survives the collapse of his school and has to head to the subway where his truanting sister is trapped with a teacher. The cooling water for the reactor runs out and the core heads for meltdown.
   The Russian boss tries to kill Josh and puts the plant into lockdown. Josh goes climbing in a lift shaft. Rachel decides that she can use the subway to bring water from a reservoir, not knowing her kids are still in the subway! The Russian boss escapes to his car but something big & heavy drops onto it.
   The kid arrives at the nuclear power plant to tell his parents about his sister, so Josh takes him to save the daughter & the teacher. Meanwhile, Rachel opens the locked doors at the plant to let the flood of water cool the core. The world is saved from a major nuclear contamination and the fractured family is repaired.

Nature Unleashed: Fire (2004) A ranger found visitors at a closed gold mine in Duluth National Park, Minnesota, and a bad guy went down the shaft. 6 months later, 2 blokes and 2 women went biking in the park and Chris crashed and broke his tibia on the day when an arsonist started lighting fires. Jake the warden was stranded with the kids when the winch on a chopper failed.
   Jake reported one fire and tried to lead the bikers to the park entrance; but he ran into another fire. The bikers made a bog of riding through a stretch of fire, Jake lost his radio and Marcus went AWoL. One of the girls added herself to the casualty list and wrote off her bike. Marcus came across the arsonist and went up in flames.
   Jake realized that someone was boxing him in with fires. He made the arsonist crash and spill the rest of his petrol. Surprise! It was the guy from the mine, he came after Jake with a chainsaw and went up in flames. More riding through fires, another crash and the bikes totalled. Jake, Chris & the girls headed for the mine on foot, Chris doing remarkably well for a bloke with a broken leg.
   The mine started collapsing, Jake broke his leg, too, methane explosions were going off and the group had to cross a shaft. The charred arsonist returned as Jake was crossing the shaft and he went down the shaft again. The girls escaped from the mine but n0 one went in to help Jake & Chris, but they got out just ahead of another methane fireball.

Nature Unleashed: Tornado (2004) 30 years before the story starts, stupid Joey watches his stupider dad kill himself while filming a tornado. As a news cameraman, he's sent to Romania with pushy Nikkie to interview a scumbag politician, who's running a 'be nice to gypsies' campaign. Joey locks on to a Gypsy woman called Irena, who recognizes his pendant as a talisman belonging to The Chosen One, who can stand up to the wind.
Irena tells Joey he's in danger from a devil-worship cult, which is trying to bring about Armageddon by tornado. Joey goes looking for Malik, Romanian scientist who co-authored a book with his dad. He's chased by a tornado and he finds Malik in a looney bin just before another tornado sweeps Malik away. A priest tells Nikkie & Joey about a coming big storm then dopey Nikkie is grabbed by the cult.
Joey rescues her. Cue a car chase until the bad guys crash. Of course, the politicians turns out to be the head of the cult, so Joey has to battle him and a whole gang of twisters. But with one bound, the danger is gone and Joey gives the talisman to Irena.

Navy Seals (1990) stars Charlie Sheen as an undisciplined special forces soldier, who can't follow orders, gets his team mates killed and doesn't get the sack. The plot revolves around attempts to recover Stinger missiles from a bunch of 'rag-heads' at the time when various militia forces were blasting Lebanon in general, and Beirut in particular, to hell and gone. The car chase at the end is good but the film has a negative credibility rating as a portrait of US special forces in action. If they were that useless, they'd all be dead by now!

Negotiator, The (1998) features the guy who does the crap Barclays Bank adverts with the pig as Danny, a hostage negotiator. His partner tells Danny that fellow Chicago cops are ripping off the police pension fund. Then the partner is murdered and Danny is framed for the crime and the theft. So he slides into Internal Affairs and takes a bunch of hostages, including the IAD bloke whom he suspects of being involved in the pension fund scam. Another hostage negotiator is called in to negotiate with Danny, the FBI turns up and the rogue cops kill the IAD bloke. Then the FBI steams in but Danny evades their ninjas and goes to the IAD bloke's home looking for evidence and a final showdown.

Netforce (1999) features Captain B. Acula from the TV series Enterprise. The film is all about attempts to police the Internet, which being overrun by organized crime. A sinister Oriental Godfather? Please! Capt. Acula takes over the leadership of the police force when his boss is 'killed' – only he isn't dead after all. The 'dead' man's master plan is to break into the White House and use secret codes to destroy the Internet, which he is supposed to have invented, because it is getting out of hand. But things don't quite work out for him.

New Alcatraz (2000) is a prison built 20 miles from the South Pole as a dumping ground for the world's unwanted, like the president of Chechnya, a serial hacker and a female IRA terrorist. It's powered by a heat exchanger with a 1,200 foot bore hole to hot rocks. And an 80-foot prehistoric monster snake emerged from the bore hole. Cue Dean Cain, the former TV Man of Sup, to reprise his role in Dragon Fighter [see films part 1].
Everyone gets killed, except Dean and the Warden (his wife went MIA for a while), so they let the prisoners out to help fight the snake, and they are horribly done to death – all except the president of Chechnya. Mr. & Mrs. Dean and the president bug out on a plane, but the creature also hitches a ride! Great fun.

New Eden (1994) begins with the curious premise that Earth would spend a lot of money to send criminals to a desert world, then shove them out the gate of a fort with clothing and supplies and calmly let them be slaughtered immediately by sand pirates, who are a Mad Max sort of bunch. Two prisoners survive. One joins the pirates. The other decides to domesticate the Scavs (scavengers), give them adobe homes and irrigated fields, and, with the help of a Samurai-type lone wolf, teach the Scavs how to resist when the pirates came round to plunder their stocks of food and steal their women.

Night at the Museum (2006) Larry is a loser with an ex-wife and a horrible kid, who wants to be a bond trader, like his step-dad. He gets a job as the sole night guard after the Museum of Natural History down-sizes the crew of 3 old blokes. On his first night, a dinosaur skeleton chases him until he throws a bone for it and all the exhibits come to life.
   President Roosevelt tells him it started happening when an Egyptian pharaoh and his sacred gold tablet were installed. The night guard's job is to keep everything inside because anything caught outside by the dawn turns to dust, like Count Dracula.
   Larry jacks in the job after one night but his kid makes him change his mind. He quits & unquits after a 2nd night of craziness, then the boss of the museum sacks him with the horrible kid watching. Larry asks for one more night and takes the kid along to see the show. But nothing happens because the 3 sacked guards are stealing the tablet because they found that the tablet brings them back to life at night.
   Larry recruits the exhibits to recover the tablet before dawn and he makes sure that Rebecca, the history nerd, sees the show. Larry gets the sack again but he's rehired for making the museum popular, and the 3 old guys end up mopping floors. Good special effects and a lot of fun.

No Good Deed (2003) Samuel L. Jackson is a diabetic, cello-playing cop, who goes looking for a 15-year-old runaway daughter as a favour for a neighbour and finds himself in the middle of a bank robbery involving a criminal pensioner couple, a homicidal punk, a young Russian pianist called Erin and a middle-aged control-freak called Tyrone, who's running the show.
   Erin has charmed a bank employee and the gang hopes to steal $10M. The cop slips into a diabetic coma, so Erin, who thinks he's an okay guy, races to his home to get insulin; and also his cello so they can play a sonata for piano & cello while the guys rob the bank. The inside man causes problems and he ends up with a password-protected floppy with all the data for the transfer.
   The cop almost escapes. The stupid punk kills the banker before he reveals the password; but Erin guesses that it's her name. On his own, the cop has hours to get loose but fails to do it before the bad guys return. But he nails the punk. The old folks, whom Tyrone planned to dump, are also shot.
   The cop talks himself into the escape plan as he can beat the rush hour and get them to Canada before the theft is spotted. They pick up loads of cashier's cheques in Albany. Tyrone tries, but fails, to kill the cop at the Canadian border and is shot to bits. Erin offers the cop a share of her million bucks but he has her busted, too.

Nuclear Hurricane (2007) This 'cheesy' sci-fi epic is set on Pele Island out in the Pacific, where there's a nuclear reactor (Why? Ed.) A huge storm is on the way, Stacy, the main computer, says everything is okay but the backup says the cooling system is failing. Linda, one of the control-room staff, who's just got the job of Rusty, her boss, can't get to the backup, Stacy is difficult about unlocking doors and she won't let them reboot the backup.
Stacy locks the facility down, which means that Eric, Linda's ex-husband, has to struggle through the storm to sort things out. Worse, he had to install a Homeland Security Protocol, which means that Stacy can tell Linda & Rusty they're not authorized to give her orders. Linda tries to sneak through the ventilation system but Stacy decides she's a virus and tries cooking her. Rusty has to rescue her.
The reactor core will melt down in 137 minutes! Al, the jobsworth maintenance man, reckons it will take a couple of hours to cut through the control room door and Stacy decides the people in there are viruses. Eric and his cop sister-in-law have to deal with a woman giving birth on the way to the reactor. And when the cooling system problem is fixed, Linda gets to shut Stacy down with malice. All very reminiscent of Hal being shut down in 2001, A Space Oddity.