by erin thursby scopes1925@msn.com
B+ Rated R 120 min.
Placing the mundanities of British country life alongside the crash-and-dash world of an action movie does have its perks. In the case of Hot Fuzz, those perks come in the form of plenty of laughs and entertainment. Even the premise is amusing; Nicholas Angel is a London cop who’s the best of the best on the force. His arrest record is legendary, so much so that his superiors feel it’s time to “promote” him to the small country village of Sandford because “You’re making us look bad.”
Once situated in Sanford, after arresting every minor offender within miles, Angel finds that there isn’t much to do, aside from chasing down errant swans and buying snacks at the corner store. Boredom sets in and he learns the art of “switching off” his cop persona from Danny Butterman (Nick Frost), his cop buddy. The growing friendship between to the two cops reads almost like a romance, complete with Butterman hesitantly asking Angel to his place for coffee after their pseudo-date. I haven’t seen that much straight man-love since the last rerun of Scrubs.
Amidst this backdrop, mysterious deaths and seemingly gruesome accidents start to take place. A local thespian (David Threlfall) is decapitated in a car crash and a property developer (Ron Cook) dies when his mansion explodes. Angel begins to suspect foul play, especially when a reporter, who was waiting to speak to him, dies via falling church stonework. Since nothing ever happens in the small village, Angel is the object of derision at the local police station.
Inevitably, Hot Fuzz will be compared to Pegg and Wright’s previous flick, Shaun of the Dead. There are clear similarities. As in Shaun, Nick Frost plays the goofy half of the duo, joking with the more responsible Angel, played by Penn. Wright also employs some of the same dramatic filming techniques, with ample use of whip pans and crash zooms, to make even mundane routines interesting to watch and the writing is applied with a broad enough pen that there are plenty of laughs, even for those of us here in the Colonies.
Even Hot Fuzz’s flaws are endearing. The leap from sleepy village to place where even the vicars are packing heat is jarring and silly, but somehow that made it even funnier for me. Angel did something that sold me on it: he pointed out how ridiculous it was. In an action movie, wherein really unbelievable things are happening, I always feel much better when someone in the movie acknowledges it.
Hot Fuzz is thick with action movie references that only a real fan of the genre could possibly decipher. Pegg and Wright do explain enough to make it easy, even for the largely uninitiated, but it helps if you’ve seen at least one action movie in your lifetime, so you can recognize the conventions that they poke fun at. If you like action movies and you like over-the-top comedy, this is definitely the movie to see.
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