HOT FUZZ

8/10 – “I’m a slasher … of prices!”

Yes, this is a good film. Don’t read what the critics say because they never get comedy as a medium of its own. Simon Pegg and chronic co-conspirator Edgar Wright (see “Spaced” and “Shaun of the Dead”) have created yet another pyrotechnical display of average Joe style comedy that only they can do … well. It is a new take on the buddy movie, without actually doing much to damage the genre. Like Shaun, they clearly love the genre they are using and clearly would never wish to damage it. What they do instead, again like Shaun, is provide a cast of characters and situations around which insanity is allowed to fly.

Simon Pegg (see also Doctor Who and Black Books) plays Nicholas Angel, an extremely dedicated and over-achieving police officer in London's Metropolitan Police Service. He is so good that he makes everyone else on the service look bad. As a result his superiors send him to a place where his talents won’t be quite so embarrassing: the sleepy and seemingly crime-free village of Sandford, where there hasn't been a recorded murder for twenty years.

Once there, he is partnered with well-meaning but overeager and naive police constable Danny Butterman (Edgar Wright,) the son of local police chief Inspector Frank Butterman. Angel, tries to adjust to the quiet and uneventful pace of the village with only the minorist sort of minor crimes (such as an escaped swan.)






Suddenly, all Hell breaks loose with a series of “accidents” that are obviously crimes. Angel is met with constant rebuke from the “yocals” and, ultimately discovers that the entire village is responsible. And, as with the zombies, Pegg is once again surrounded by loads of people who want to kill him.




What Hot Fuzz does so well is to take the road less traveled. At some point, when we discover that the entire village is involved and even his new friend Danny, Angel’s life is spared by Danny and taken to the edge of town. What ensues is action mayhem when Angel decides he must return to the village to see that justice is done. Armed with almost every weapon conceivable, he rides into Sandford on horseback … ready for battle.



This was just a great, not too heavy movie for the end of the week. Quite honestly I laughed more than I thought I would and, hell, it even has a great soundtrack.

“Yarp.”