Hot Fuzz Release Date: April 20, 2007 Starring: Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Jim Broadbent, Steve Coogan, Bill Nighy, Paddy Considine, Rafe Spall Directed by: Edgar Wright
"I'm just beginning to see how un-ridiculous this all is," policeman — oh, I'm sorry, police officer — Danny Butterman, played by Nick Frost, exclaims at what many viewers might figure is the very most ridiculous point of this film. The figuring of many viewers would be wrong — Hot Fuzz does not reach the height of ridiculousness here. In fact, it goes on to raise the bar a good five or six times more.
The gang that gave us the uproarious, and veddy British, 2004 zombie-movie spoof Shaun of the Dead — director-cowriter Edgar Wright, star-cowriter Simon Pegg, costar Frost, and more — are back, this time sending up big, brash, stupid cop movies. Or rather, sending up big, brash, stupid American cop movies as seen through the prism of a British sensibility. That sounds high-toned, but believe me, Hot Fuzz is anything but high-toned. What it is is deeply nuts and exhaustingly hilarious.
The movie begins with relative sobriety. I say relative because how sober can any movie that throws Martin Freeman, Steve Coogan, and Bill Nighy in your face during its first ten minutes be? The three cameo as police higher-ups who have to convince supercop Nicholas Angel (whose efficiency and arrest record is putting the rest of the force — oh, I'm sorry, it's not "force," it's "service" — to shame) that a transfer from London to the very quiet village of Sandford is really a good thing. Angel (Pegg), who's not only a law-enforcement juggernaut but so devoted to duty that he fully subscribes to the p.c. euphemisms of the new, um, service, tackles his new assignment grudgingly but with brio, hauling a bunch of underage drinkers into the station on his first night — effectively emptying the village's pub. The adult inebriant he arrests that evening turns out to be his future partner Butterman, the son of avuncular police chief Frank (Jim Broadbent). Butterman's the only one in the service, or the village, who respects Angel's sense of mission. Most of his colleagues, particularly two detectives (Paddy Considine and Rafe Spall) who share both a name (Andy) and a taste for, well, ridiculous facial hair, have a less benign take. Once the village is hit by multiple grisly deaths (and they are mind-bogglingly gory), Angel's sense of mission goes into even higher gear.
The movie becomes almost as insensibly extravagant with its multiple climaxes and parodic action sequences as the cop movies it's sending up — what some English major types might term "intentional fallacy." And truth to tell, Fuzz is long for a comedy — 115 minutes. Then again, Bad Boys II, one of the movies explicitly referenced here, is 147 minutes, so Fuzz might be regarded as relatively compressed.
READ MORE: Critic's Choice: Best of 2007
