This isn't the best week to release a droll English comedy that ends in a blaze of high-caliber lead. But viewed objectively-if you can "Hot Fuzz" is one of the cleverest movie parodies to come along in some while. In fact, the last satire of this ilk that was nearly as good was "Shaun of the Dead," the affectionately demented zombie comedy from "Hot Fuzz's" brain trust: writer-director Edgar Wright, star and co-writer Simon Pegg and actor Nick Frost.
"Fuzz" does for overpumped cop action what "Shaun" did for flesh-eating brainlessness: sends up the genre's plentiful absurdities in a movie that's put together better than most serious films of the same type. Frost and Pegg are sticklers for detail and logic, no matter how out of shape they try to stretch it. Not one of "Fuzz's" references or gags misses a payoff.
The jokes unmistakably come from sensibilities that have studied every frame Michael Bay and Tony Scott ever shot and then ruthlessly concentrated on how to comically undercut them. All while remaining as understatedly British as anything involving reverse-impaling by church steeple can. Pegg plays Nicholas Angel, a London cop so dedicated and effective that he gets transferred to the picturesque village
Utterly frustrated by a country constabulary that is mainly concerned with eating desserts and assignments such as retrieving runaway swans, Angel quickly alienates most of the town by enforcing every petty law to the letter. Constantly derided by Sandford P.D.
's lazy, sarcastic detectives (Paddy Considine and Rafe Spall) and undermined by the overly cheery Chief Butterman (Jim Broadbent), Angel reluctantly bonds with the only person in town who actually thinks he's cool: Butterman's drunken, out-of-shape son Danny (Frost), who dreams of being a supercop. Taking the usual buddy business in an unusual (but, like so much here, perfectly apt) direction, Wright presents Danny and Angel's relationship in the tone of a love story. He also has an amusing habit of editing mundane police activities in hyped-up, smash-cut montages, a snarky commentary on how so many of these movies are directed by TV commercial guys who can't do anything without hard-selling it visually.
The real action ante goes up as a series of grisly murders descends on Sandford's most obnoxious citizens. Angel can't convince anybody that they're more than just theunfortunate accidents that they're unpersuasively staged to be. When someone goes lurking about in druid robes, Wright shifts the whole thing into a spaghetti Western/"Dirty Harry"/"Wicker Man" spoof while still making an over-the-top action comedy.
Through all the increasing nuttiness, Pegg anchors the film with what could be described as a rationality beyond all reason. Angel may be a pill, but he's usually right and certainly more likable than most Sandfordians want to believe. They may ridicule him, but audiences won't.
Pegg rather ingeniously avoids silly behavior and still manages to stay funny. Not by going deadpan, either; Angel has a full range of human emotions. He just kind of knows how to prioritize them like everything else in his life, which can be rather hilarious in a world gone crazy.
Wright, who directed one of the fake trailers in "Grindhouse," has turned "Hot Fuzz" into his own celebration of disreputable movies, complete with loads of fannish references and expertly chosen pop music cues. He also goes on a bit long about it, but with a subversive intelligence that "Grindhouse" could have used a lot more of. You neither have to love or loathe overproduced, overloaded Hollywood cop films to get a big kick out of "Hot Fuzz.
" You just have to appreciate smart hmor, and have a certain tolerance for high-decibel gore.
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