With the enormous wave of goodwill that Shaun of the Dead generated, Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg have produced Hot Fuzz, another British comedy, this time spoofing the overblown cop-antics of Lethal Weapon et al. Will it live up to its predecessor?
The setup of Hot Fuzz is fairly simple, with Pegg playing a “supercop” in London who is posted to a small rural village because he makes all the other policemen look bad. While there he runs into a murder spree and mentors a bumbling rural police constable with dreams of being a proper cop (played by old Spaced and Shaun of the Dead stooge Nick Frost).
The interplay between Pegg and Frost is probably the film’s strongest point, as they use it to play up the homoerotic undertones that usually feature in buddy-cop films. Also good are the inevitable references to The Wicker Man, Straw Dogs, and Bergerac. I was the only person in my cinema who laughed at the Chinatown reference, which made me feel all special.
There is a feeling that the film is really just a build-up to the big action-sequence of the last half hour. This is pretty good, and you suspect that in many ways, this was the moment that Edgar Wright has been waiting for his whole life. Certainly it’s hard not to be carried along by the sheer exuberance with which Wright proceeds to fuck up rural England using automatic gunfire. There’s a nice subversion of the “cop as Fascist vigilante” archetype going on here, too.
The problem is that this build-up leaves the rest of the film a bit bereft of purpose. Also, the plot feels a little too over-egged, making the finale seem a bit too far-fetched even for a send-up of Jerry Bruckheimer. Having said that, you will laugh. I did. And those of us who remember the bad days of British comedy cinema (for my sins, I saw Guest House Paradiso at the cinema) will take that any time.
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