Hot Fuzz surprised the hell out of me. I must say that I was a little underwhelmed by Shaun of the Dead. It had it's moments but I thought it should have been funnier. Even with that thought I tried to go into Hot Fuzz with an open mind and I am glad I did. Hot Fuzz starts off with an overachievers wet dream. A narrated montage of our hero, Nicholas Angel's training and track record as a police officer. With an arrest record that is 400% higher than the rest of London's police force, his superiors decide to transfer him so they look better. Angel is transferred to the picturesque village of Sandford where things aren't as quaint as they seem. As mysterious “lethal accidents” pile up it is up to Nick Angel and his bumbling partner to get to the bottom of these suspicious occurrences.

Simon Pegg plays Angel extremely straight-laced, following the letter of the law exactly while Nick Frost's Danny Butterman is pretty much the polar opposite. And that is part of what makes this movie work. These guys were friends before they even thought about being in movies which gives them such familiarity on screen that allows them to play off each other perfectly. Toss in the usual suspects, Martin Freeman, Bill Nighy and others make for a great cop parody. And don't forget Timothy Dalton playing a seedy supermarket owner whose ego would be more befitting to one of Dalton's own Bond movies.

What else makes it worthy of watching is how brilliantly the plot thickens. The reveal of what is really going on almost had me rolling in the aisle. Following that, there is a shootout that Michael Bay would be proud of and a fight of Godzillic proportions in which our villain finally “gets the point.” Hot Fuzz is a funny movie that delivers with plenty of laughs, bullets and even a church steeple thrown in for good measure. While not exactly my cup of tea, Hot Fuzz manages to parody the buddy cop film without taking it too far over the top. Some of the “accidents” are a bit gruesome in an absurd comedic way, but they work in this type of film. Now I gotta go see Shaun of the Dead again to see if I missed something in the first viewing. Damn you Edgar Wright!

Where was Nick Angel when Shaun needed him?

Keep reading,
Mitch E.
mitchemerson@hotmail.com