[Movie 302 / Day 321]
I have a confession to make. I was never a massive fan of the TV series Spaced. I have even bought the DVDs to retry it after seeing SHAUN OF THE DEAD for the first time because I thought I must be mistaken. But I wasn’t – I just can’t get into Spaced. This is something that I find bizarre, because I love both SHAUN and HOT FUZZ, the two flicks co-written by Edgar Wright (also the director) and Simon Pegg (also the lead actor). With Spaced, I see it as an average sitcom; but with the movies, I see them as shining examples of British humour and brilliant action comedies in their own right, easily standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the best Hollywood has to offer.
At it’s heart, HOT FUZZ is a parody of Hollywood’s buddy cop movies (BAD BOYS, LETHAL WEAPON, etc) in which hard-nosed London cop Nicholas Angel (Pegg) is transferred to the tiny village of Sanford, because his arrest rate is so much better than anyone elses that he’s making the rest of the Met look bad. Once there, he discovers that the crime rate is low and that the police force are mostly feckless. Out on the beat with his new partner, Danny Butterman (Nick Frost), Angel soon finds that while his London-tuned brain is taking note of potential threats everywhere, his new colleagues think he’s looking too hard and seeing things that aren’t there. It’s good to see two actors who are clearly good friends in real life on screen together – Frost and Pegg have such a natural rapport that it’s easy to see they had a blast making the movie, and that sense of fun filters down to the viewer.
Similarly to SHAUN OF THE DEAD, there are lots of clues dotted around in the first part of the movie that you just won’t spot on the first watch. The movie moves at a slowish pace for the first two-thirds, with Angel and Danny’s friendship steadily growing as they investigate an increasingly gory series of ‘accidental’ deaths in the village; building to a finale that would rival an LA-based cop movie for firepower. But rather than a shootout in a typically American setting, say Alcatraz for instance, here we stick with the quintessentially British locations of a Somerfield supermarket and a model village.
HOT FUZZ is full of little nods to the American movies that it is parodying, as well as plenty of original, British comedy. In fact, in the DVD commentary, Wright and Pegg even go as far as to say they tried to shoehorn every single buddy cop cliché they could into the flick. On top of that, they even find time to reference SHAUN OF THE DEAD a couple of times. The laughs aren’t continuous, but they’re still plentiful and are quite often caused by things in the background rather than whatever we should be focussing on. Some of the supporting characters are absolutely brilliant, especially Paddy Considine’s obnoxious, moustachioed DS Andy Wainwright; and Timothy Dalton’s oily supermarket owner.
I decided to rewatch HOT FUZZ because of the sad death of one of its cast members, British legend Edward Woodward (who plays Neighbourhood Watch busybody Tom Weaver). Both Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg posted moving tributes to the man on their websites (here and here, respectively) – both are well worth reading.
I’m so glad I did revisit HOT FUZZ, because I rediscovered my love for the brilliant comedy pairing of Wright/Pegg and it left me wanting to watch more – so much so, that I even rewatched the first half and listened to the commentary, which is both interesting and amusing and, if you can find the time, a rewarding listen.
Obviously, the only thing to do now is rewatch SHAUN OF THE DEAD. I was trying to hold-off until I could get a copy of the new bluray, but I don’t think that’s going to be possible…
My Rating: 
[ IMDB rating: 8.0 / 10 | IMDB link | Running time: 121 mins ]
