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Film review

'Hot Fuzz,' cool comedy

A supercop goes way over the top in this farce that turns action movies into fodder for fun.

By Steve Persall
Published April 19, 2007

Every action movie cliche worth despising is transformed into something lovable in Hot Fuzz, another subversive comedy from the creators of Shaun of the Dead.

Director Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg, his writing colleague/star, gingerly toe the line between ridiculing a genre many viewers still buy into and replicating its tired tactics.

Taken seriously, Hot Fuzz may disappoint in the same way This Is Spinal Tap turned off humorless viewers puzzled by such an inept rock band deserving a movie. Taken as the farce it's intended to be, Wright's film is a spot-on spoof that will never again allow you to watch Lethal Weapon-style movies with a straight face.

But that's how Pegg plays Nick Angel, the obligatory supercop who upsets his superiors by bending the rules. He makes everyone look bad with an arrest rate 400 percent higher than his colleagues'. So he's exiled to the country village of Sandford, where crime is either nonexistent or petty. It is the least likely setting for an action flick, but that's the bizarro-world mind-set of Hot Fuzz.

Nick's by-the-book attitude rubs everyone the wrong way except his sidekick officer, Danny Butterman Nick Frost. Danny adores macho movie junk like Point Break and Bad Boys II. So does Wright, for hilariously wrong reasons, stealing and exaggerating their scenes, camera setups, slo-mo spins and bombastic music cues.

Referential humor is a large part of Hot Fuzz's oeuvre, although action flicks have cannibalized each other so much that it's hard to pinpoint all the sources. That's the subtle punch line that may sail over some heads; like a cerebral standup comedian, Wright can sometimes be too smart for the room.

A series of grisly murders sparks Nick's crime-fighting instincts, which are honed when Danny shares his video collection of buddy flicks. The mystery doesn't matter, almost becoming sillier and more convoluted than ones Michael Bay and Jerry Bruckheimer take seriously.

Hot Fuzz culminates with an overextended sequence of impossibly blazing guns, explosions and heroic posturing - snarky, imaginative spins on stale movie conventions.

Hot Fuzz could be trimmed by at least 20 minutes, but the excess is probably another of Wright's potshots at macho moviemaking. Everything in Wright's movie is over the top and way on the other side of expectations, from Timothy Dalton's portrayal of a shifty city father to death scenes rivaling Shaun of the Dead's gore factor. Hot Fuzz doesn't always hit the bull's eye with its satire - when it does, it is overkill - yet a smarter comedy can't be found in theaters right now.

Steve Persall can be reached at (727) 893-8365 or persall@sptimes.com.

REVIEW

Hot Fuzz

Grade: B+

Director: Edgar Wright

Cast: Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Timothy Dalton, Jim Broadbent, Edward Woodward, Billie Whitelaw, Paddy Considine, Martin Freeman

Screenplay: Simon Pegg, Edgar Wright

Rating: R; graphic violence, strong profanity

Running time: 121 min.

[Last modified April 18, 2007, 11:21:01]