Hot Fuzz
The beauty of British satire is that UK film makers can take the mickey out of their targeted subject matter while maintaining a strong story with an emotional core. You actually care about characters.
Following the success of English-flavoured zombie comedy, Shaun of the Dead, the same team of Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright brings audiences Hot Fuzz – a simultaneous dig at big budget American police movies (like Bad Boys and Lethal Weapon) and all those British murder mysteries set in small towns (like Midsomer Murders).
The plot centres on top London cop Nicholas Angel (Pegg) whose performance is so superb that his superiors, fearful of looking bad by comparison, ‘promote’ Angel to sergeant in Sanford, the most peaceful village in England. Naturally Angel struggles to adapt in a laid-back atmosphere where the police department sits around eating cake and ice cream all day, and the town’s biggest ‘problem’ – according to a militant Neighbourhood Watch type organisation – is street entertainers.
Angel soon discovers however that something sinister is brewing beneath the village’s quiet façade, and it’s up to him, and pudgy constable, Danny Butterman (who hero-worships Angel) to solve the mystery. In the process, events culminate in a hilariously absurd, comically violent shoot-out and fight sequence that pays tribute to everything from Point Break to Tarantino to Westerns to Japanese monster movies. The audience receives a definite sense that Pegg and Wright love movies!
What really works in Hot Fuzz’s favour is the chemistry between Angel and Butterman, whose “buddy cop” relationship deliberately and continually teeters on the brink of love interest – apparently a love interest was removed from the film’s script and her lines passed to Nick Frost’s Butterman. Angel offers Butterman the police excitement he years for while Butterman helps free Angel from his ungratifying, militant lifestyle.
Then there’s the supporting cast (I especially loved the Sandford police team) that includes plenty of vintage British talent, including Jim Broadbent as Sanford’s passive police inspector and Timothy Dalton hamming things up as a sleazy supermarket owner.
I’m not sure yet if Hot Fuzz is as good as Shaun of the Dead. Only time and repeat viewings will really tell. But it’s definitely the best comedy currently showing in South African cinemas, by far.
Following the success of English-flavoured zombie comedy, Shaun of the Dead, the same team of Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright brings audiences Hot Fuzz – a simultaneous dig at big budget American police movies (like Bad Boys and Lethal Weapon) and all those British murder mysteries set in small towns (like Midsomer Murders).
The plot centres on top London cop Nicholas Angel (Pegg) whose performance is so superb that his superiors, fearful of looking bad by comparison, ‘promote’ Angel to sergeant in Sanford, the most peaceful village in England. Naturally Angel struggles to adapt in a laid-back atmosphere where the police department sits around eating cake and ice cream all day, and the town’s biggest ‘problem’ – according to a militant Neighbourhood Watch type organisation – is street entertainers.
Angel soon discovers however that something sinister is brewing beneath the village’s quiet façade, and it’s up to him, and pudgy constable, Danny Butterman (who hero-worships Angel) to solve the mystery. In the process, events culminate in a hilariously absurd, comically violent shoot-out and fight sequence that pays tribute to everything from Point Break to Tarantino to Westerns to Japanese monster movies. The audience receives a definite sense that Pegg and Wright love movies!
What really works in Hot Fuzz’s favour is the chemistry between Angel and Butterman, whose “buddy cop” relationship deliberately and continually teeters on the brink of love interest – apparently a love interest was removed from the film’s script and her lines passed to Nick Frost’s Butterman. Angel offers Butterman the police excitement he years for while Butterman helps free Angel from his ungratifying, militant lifestyle.
Then there’s the supporting cast (I especially loved the Sandford police team) that includes plenty of vintage British talent, including Jim Broadbent as Sanford’s passive police inspector and Timothy Dalton hamming things up as a sleazy supermarket owner.
I’m not sure yet if Hot Fuzz is as good as Shaun of the Dead. Only time and repeat viewings will really tell. But it’s definitely the best comedy currently showing in South African cinemas, by far.
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