Hot Fuzz
“Have you
ever fired your gun in the air and gone Ahh?” asks Danny,
an over weight, clumsy police officer. The man being asked the question is
Constable Nicolas Angel; a former London police officer, now working in the
tiny village-town of Sandford. He is immensely frustrated by this question, as
his new partner thinks police work is meant to be like ‘Lethal Weapon’.
‘Hot Fuzz’ was more or less the
follow up to ‘Shaun of the Dead’; the very clever British comedy that took the
zombie genre and flipped it upside down. Many zombie elements remained, but our
hero in that story was a pathetic, loser of a man called Shaun, whose idea of a
romantic evening was to take his girlfriend to the local pub – the Winchester.
During the zombie plague he is joined by his mate Ed, an even more pathetic
loser who Shaun is always standing up for. Needless to say, Shaun holds it up
in beloved Winchester and armed with a cricket bat, comes out triumphant and
defeats the zombies.
In Hot Fuzz, Simon Pegg and Nick
Frost return, both playing police officers forced close together but are worlds
apart. After being transferred from the London Police for being too good at his
job and making the rest of the force look bad, Angel (Pegg) has no say and ends
up in the sleepy town of Sandford. He tries to make a go of it, but with
nothing to police and a partner who just asks endless questions to satisfy his
belief that Angel is an amazing police man, he quickly gets down in the
dumps.
However, this small town has a few
dark secrets, and when a murderer shows up to pick off some of the towns
citizens, and in violent fashion, Angel steps up and plays detective – as the
towns two actual detectives couldn’t give a rats arse. As Angel discovers the
victims are linked in an intricate way, his suspicions take him to the heart of
a mystery involving most of the town’s citizens.
British humour really is in a league
of its own, and Hot Fuzz pays respect to that while also adding some new
elements to the formula. If you loved Shaun of the Dead you will want to see
Hot Fuzz (if you haven’t already). It was a great progression from the zombie
outing to this tale, which will please fans of the team behind Shaun.
There are many great characters on
display here. The actor’s chosen to play them were the perfect choices; each of
them embodies their characters, including all their unusual quirks and flaws,
with creativity and charm. Just as in Shaun of the Dead, Pegg and Frost have
great chemistry together, although their characters and the dynamics between
them are much different this time around. Pegg has taken it up a notch to be a
responsible, serious officer of the law, where as Frost is still the bumbling,
hapless idiot he was in Shaun.
Movie buffs will love Hot Fuzz, as
it references several popular action movies, the two main ones being “Point Break”
and “Bad Boys 2”; both of them extremely over-the-top, adrenaline charged
action spectacles which go against everything police officers should do in the
real world. At first, the references to these movies come in the form of Danny
asking whether or not Angel has seen the movies. When he reveals that he
hasn’t, the two of them have a movie marathon and watch both films back to
back. Towards the end of the film, as the two cops take on the villain(s), the
references come thick and fast as certain camera angles and recognisable shots
are entirely replicated. This was a clever touch to show just how deep into the
case these cops get and their only way to survive the carnage is to imagine
it’s all just a movie.
When watching Hot Fuzz, sit back and
be prepared for a hilarious and visually entertaining film, which combines
great music, sharp writing and over the top action scenes to deliver what is
definitely one of the best and funniest Action-Comedy films ever made. Well,
in my opinion anyway!
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