The Rice Thresher

Location: http://the.ricethresher.org/ae/2007/04/20/hotfuzzreview

April 20, 2007 > Arts & Entertainment > British comedy duo does police satire right

British comedy duo does police satire right

By Sean McBeath | Thresher Editorial Staff

A quick once-over of Hot Fuzz’s storyline might make audiences groan at the prospect of another Rush Hour style, east-meets-west cop comedy. But think twice. Hot Fuzz, from the creators of the horror-comedy Shaun of the Dead (writer Simon Pegg and writer/director Edgar Wright), manage to produce a more mature, sophisticated film than one expects from this worn-out genre.

Nicholas Angel (Pegg) of London’s Metropolitan Police Department finds himself in an uncommon predicament: He is too good at his job. As a result, Angel is promoted to the rank of Sergeant — and transferred to the small village of Sandford, Gloucester so that he will not continue making the rest of the police service look bad, as Chief Inspector Kenneth (Notes on a Scandal’s Bill Nighy) tells him. Despite his complaints, Angel is forced out of his position with the Met and begins his dreary journey to Sandford.

At this point, Hot Fuzz incorporates a number of cliches which could easily drag the movie down. The movie has every predictable gimmicky element from an annoyingly lax Sandford Inspector to the clueless sidekick with delusions of grandeur to an entire police service upset and perturbed by the new big-city cop.

Sandford, three-time Village of the Year, boasts the lowest crime rate in all of England. But when Angel starts seeing connections between a series of gruesome accidents, his big-city instincts kick in and so does the investigation.

For some time Hot Fuzz reminds viewers of an incredibly mundane episode of “Cops.” We follow Angel and partner Danny Butterman (Shaun of the Dead’s Nick Frost) through their mundane responses to Sandford’s 911 calls, meanwhile learning of Danny’s obsession with police action movies. Wright uses Danny to parody action movies, exploiting the character’s near-infinite knowledge of the genre and questions like, “Have you ever fired two guns whilst jumping through the air? Have you ever fired one gun whilst jumping through the air?”

And Wright mocks effectively without losing himself in the comedy of his film. He manages to avoid the comedic plague that makes films like Rush Hour and Scary Movie almost painful. Wright is distinctly aware of Hot Fuzz’s relationship to the movies it mocks but seeks to separate his film. Rather than adopting the all-out ridiculousness reminiscent of the Wayans Brothers, Wright and Pegg create a comedy based on seriousness. Surprisingly, Hot Fuzz is equal parts detective film and action film. In comparison to Shaun of the Dead’s relatively clear-cut — while still innovative — plotline, Hot Fuzz is fairly complex. Creating a mystery storyline within the bounds of reason that is intricate enough to intrigue the viewer is no easy task, but Wright and Pegg’s fantastic mishaps are just believable enough.

That is not to say that the connection between Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz is unclear. The same sporadic, jumpy editing is immediately apparent in both films. Wright’s approach, while sometimes confusing — quick scene changes distract from the story in the film’s opening scenes — is just as often satisfying. It gives insight into the boredom and drudgery that accompany Angel’s life as a police officer without directly subjecting viewers to his pain.

In fact, Hot Fuzz spends a lot of time dwelling on the juxtaposition of Angel’s “real” policework to the kind of laughable policework shown in movies like Point Break and Bad Boys II. Small touches — such as moments when Danny demonstrates his complete internalization of action movies — save Hot Fuzz from becoming another low-level comedy. After Angel and Danny watch Point Break and Bad Boys II, Angel has the sense to point out that a police officer “can’t commit carnage on that scale without incurring a large amount of paperwork.”

On the whole, Hot Fuzz manages to combine two vastly varying styles of police movies: the detective film and the action film. Truthfully, Pegg and Wright have not conquered the task of creating a movie that successfully blends the action of John McTiernan’s Die Hard and the intellectual plot of Spike Lee’s Inside Man. But they have created a movie that gives a healthy dose of each. And while the story sometimes breaks the bounds of the plausible, it manages to keep the viewer captivated by oddly carrying a plot while continuing its comedic genius.

End of article

Back to top