Hot Fuzz

So this is great little gem from Britain. I found it to be more entertaining, better written, and just overall better than Shaun of the Dead. That might be partly due to the fact that I don’t like/watch zombie movies, so I couldn’t appreciate it as much, nor did I like it when the movie actually became a zombie flick with people tearing out everybody’s innards. But I also think I found this more enjoyable because right off the bat, three great British comedians/actors made some all-too-brief cameos, but cameos nonetheless. I’m talking about Martin Freeman (Hello? The Office, UK style!), Bill Nighy (Love Actually for starters), and Steve Coogan (Alan Partridge of various Alan Partridge shows) as London police officers. And then Peter Jackson makes a brief cameo as a stab-happy Santa Claus, and even Cate Blanchett slips in somewhere, but I missed that one. Ok, those people aside, the two stars of the film, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, were made for each other, in a very heterosexual way, although the movie plays with their male closeness in a few great scenes. Just like Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz becomes the very movie that Nick Frost’s character wanted it to be – a full on buddy cop action flick. With many references to Bad Boys II and Point Break, the cops of an assumingly perfect village take on the serial killer(s) that’s been terrorizing the city. There is a lot of gun action in this movie, and at the time I saw this the tragedy at Virginia Tech occurred only a few days before, so I couldn’t help but feel awkward and guilty watching these characters get a little nutty with such powerful weapons. But it made me feel better when surprisingly no one in the film was killed off with bullets. Anyhow, there are definitely some great gross-out moments, and even bits of suspense. And although I can’t fully apprehend or appreciate all the British inside jokes, it’s really a great satirical piece, even of bad Hollywood action movies. The best part though? How ‘bout that model village being destroyed and the wonderfully eerie Timothy Dalton falling into an unfortunate situation? Or even the bit between Pegg and Frost having a conversation about brainfreeze? A new cult classic, I’d say.

Directed by Edgar Wright
Runtime: 121 minutes