Hot Fuzz: Movie Review

With Simon Pegg making a brief appearance at San Diego's Comic-Con this weekend of July 25th and will be starring in the upcoming comedy How to Lose Friends & Alienate People, I thought that I would take a moment to look at one of his earlier comedies that made him a star among us geeks and British comedy fans. Since my friend is still borrowing my DVD of Shaun of the Dead, I'll have to go with his second British comedy that crossed the ocean into the United States, Hot Fuzz.

Hot Fuzz is a film from Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright, the filmmaking duo best known for their cameo appearances as photo-booth zombies living-impaired in George A. Romero's Land of the Dead. And they also had some part in some film called Shaun of the Dead, the greatest romantic comedy film I know. And they did the TV series Spaced, a Britsh comedy I want to see. But watching those two men snarling at high-class society while restrained in chains gave me a message that these guys would continue to give such strange messages in their future films.

Hot Fuzz is an action movie where two buddy cops from opposite ends of the law-enforcement totem pole pair up to solve some major crimes as they take the time to hate each other, like each other, and shoot a lot of people in the process. During the film, you may say to yourself, "This movie sounds just like that those movies with Mel Gibosn and Danny Glover."

Or you might ask, "Didn't Will Smith and Martin Lawrence do this already?"

Or maybe even, "Can you honestly believe that Keanu Reeves is an actor?"

To which, I have to answer, "You're right!"

What makes Hot Fuzz different from those other buddy-cop flicks is that this movie makes it a point to poke fun at most of these buddy-cop and action movie clichés. And with the large number of these types of movies, the poking is just as numerous. You've got a bureaucratic police department that is easily shaken by a renegade cop, but the twist here is that this renegade cop actually LIKES his job and the rules associated with it. There are CSI agents who all talk and dress alike and usually miss the obvious clue that cracks the case. In addition to high speed chases, the adrenaline pumps due to the excellent assortment of guns and weapons that would make any gun nut drool and the over-the-top shoot out sequences involving dives, two-gun action, standoffs, hidden guns in the sleeves, and hostage taking. The murders are bloody violent to the point of comedic. And then there are the pseudo-homosexual moments between the budding buddy cops to poke fun at.

Hot Fuzz manages to make blatant parodies and references to films like Bad Boys, Point Break, (both films providing key "plot" points) Commando, John Woo films, Chinatown, Men in Black, Lethal Weapon, Leon: The Professional, Romeo and Juliet (The crappy one by Baz Luhrmann), Godzilla, The Matrix, and even my personal favorite video game, Time Crisis. For Shaun of the Dead fans, Hot Fuzz reuses some of the same material for better or worse. As an action movie and TV police show fan, I was glad to see the absence of police departmental shower scenes, references to Mel Gibson's naked butt, and any reference to the Police Academy movies. I was saddened that the key tag phrase of the cult TV police comedy Sledge Hammer! was changed into something less macho or epic.

The Achilles' heel of Hot Fuzz occurs when it shares the same flaws of police action films it parodies: Police investigation plot. When the primary cast eventually attempts to solve the major crimes, the pacing and humor severely slow down. Perhaps this is an intentional portrayal of showing that police action films are really terrible with their own plots and are better off sticking with shoot outs and car chases. During the investigation process, Hot Fuzz is no longer a police action parody and becomes just another police action movie.

But once the dynamic duo of Simon Pegg and Nick Frost find their man, "Hot Fuzz" quickly reverts to its hyperbole of action, humor, and style that makes it great.