New Release: Hot Fuzz

What Hot Shots Part Deux did for the military action movie, Hot Fuzz does for the buddy-cop action comedy, with style, more plot, on a bigger budget, in Britain… and with Timothy Dalton instead of Lloyd Bridges. With the minds that brought Shaun of the Dead to life at the helm, one wonders, what could possibly go wrong? Well, in reality, very little indeed; this is a hilarious film from top to bottom, that is, if you find extreme gore, murder, parodies of action movies and old ladies being kicked in the face funny. It would certainly seem that I do. Simon Pegg stars as Nicholas Angel, a badass cop who finds himself suddenly ‘promoted’ to a posting in the sleepy village of Stanford when his colleagues on the force (err squad) become green-eyed over his immaculate arrest record. Thus Angel finds himself patrolling a rural hamlet where seemingly nothing goes on, and to boot, he has the unwanted help and admiration of the Chief Inspector’s son and fellow constable Danny Butterman (Nick Frost). The annual Village of the Year contest is imminently looming, just as a series of grisly accidents start to rock Stanford, however Angel seems to be the only one suspecting foul play; just so, he asks: “Haven’t you ever wondered why the crime rate is so low, but the accident rate is so high?”

Hot Fuzz is immaculately directed by Edgar Wright, who obviously put forth an effort to study the mechanics of the action movies he’s parodying. He manages to capture the run ‘n gun feel of the fast paced thrillers, all without ruining the comedic timing of the jokes or making it seem too dumb, despite that fact that it’s all very preposterous. And surprisingly, the large amounts of gore coupled with the extremely violent death scenes tend to be the only things played for gross-out laughs, the snappily written and delivered dialogue is by far the most humorous and appealing part of this movie; whether it’s the characters using a crossword puzzle to call each other names or just the relentless drubbing of action movie clichés, this film delivers almost as many punchlines as it does bullets.

My IMDB Rating: 8 Stars