“By the power of Greyskull!”
Chances are you already know what happens in Hot Fuzz, but in case you’re one of those TiVo types who skips through the commercials that make the programs you watch possible, here’s the lowdown: Nick Angel (Simon Pegg) is the fast rising crime-fighting machine of the London police force service. With a record that makes everyone else in the office look like Barney Fife while Angel himself looks like Robocop (minus the robot part…), the higher ups decide to promote him to Sergeant… in the rural village of Sandford… so he can stop making everyone else look bad. No sooner is supercop Nick relocated then he starts cleaning up the sleepy burg, starting with the under-aged drinking and one particular intoxicated local whom he learns the next day just happens to be his new partner: Danny Butterman (Nick Frost).
Danny’s the typical “cop slob” caricature who looks up to Nick because he thinks Sgt. Angel is the incarnation of all Danny’s favorite action movie leading roles, from Keanu Reeves in Point Break to Will Smith in Bad Boys II. While Nick tries to mold Danny into the best law enforcement officer he can be, Danny provides Nick with info on the local color and a much needed anchor to the real world. Meanwhile, a number of mysterious deaths start turning up all over the village that are no doubt linked… by the hood wearing serial killer that’s causing them! While everyone else is convinced that the deaths are all just unrelated “accidents”, Angel knows better and investigates the matter further, educating bumbling Danny along the way while he teaches Angel how to be human. Are these murders the act of a single character, or part of a much bigger conspiracy? Is local supermarket owner Simon Skinner (Timothy Dalton!) the man behind the hood? Could it be the big retarded local shopping cart pusher whose mom and sister are the same person? Perhaps it’s one of the supermarket’s suspicious looking, knife throwing deli workers? Does anyone else find it odd that everybody in the police station seems so contented on turning Sgt. Angel off of the case and chalking everything up as simple “accidents”? This is something for you to find out on your own… or you can just find a review full of spoilers and ruin it for yourself. Trust me, it’s worth seeing it for yourself, as the entire mix explodes in an orgy of dolly shots, discharged firearms, a car chase, a very uncomfortable impalement and, well, a Godzilla-like scene of… uhm… trust me, just watch the movie.
If you saw Shaun of the Dead and you liked it because it was well written, well acted and deftly lampoons an entire movie genre without becoming mindlessly goofy, see Hot Fuzz. If you only liked Shaun of the Dead because it had zombies in it, well, then you wouldn’t really have a reason to see Hot Fuzz because there aren’t any zombies in it… you know, cuz it’s a parody of action movies… If you haven’t seen Shaun of the Dead yet, then I suggest seeing both that and Hot Fuzz and if you didn’t like Shaun of the Dead, well, you’re entitled to your own opinion and all, but I can’t help you. Pegg and Frost are my new favorite comedy duo and I hope they stick to doing movies together for a long time coming. They play so well off of each other with Pegg as the straight laced responsible type and Frost as his laid back, fun loving foil. Timothy Dalton is hilarious as the slimy bastard, if for no other reason than because it’s Timothy fucking Dalton! Everybody else in the cast is perfect too, lets just conserve some space and leave it at that.
Pegg also works amazingly well with director and co-writer Edgar Wright and the two are adept at riffing on the action movie industry. From subtle nuances to flat-out poking fun to full-on shot-for-shot parodies, it’s an art that these guys have honed to the clichéd “razor’s edge”. Though I can freely acknowledge that Hot Fuzz is a borderline masterpiece, I hate to admit that there just didn’t seem to be the inherent sense of intensity needed to really knock me on my ass. Granted there are several moments in intense and bloody violence that will catch you off guard, but there's still something missing. Normally this isn’t a problem, but given that this is a parody of action movies, there’s an ever present lingering air of, I don’t know, “Britishness” to the movie that seems to dull the experience a little. Obviously I loved the movie and I’ll be picking it up on DVD for frequent future viewing, but there’s a part of me that just feels that a parody of Hollywood actioners is better shot with that Hollywood gloss to take the joke all the way instead of the “fish and chips, crappy weather and general sense of dreary” atmosphere ever present in UK media. Other than this minor complaint, I can’t recommend Hot Fuzz enough. As the kids say these days, “It’s off the fucking chain!”…
