RELEASE DATE: APRIL 20
Director: Edgar Wright
Writer: Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg
Cinematographer: Jess Hall
Starring: Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Jim Broadbent, Timothy Dalton, Bill Nighy
Studio/Running Time: Rogue Pictures, 121 mins.
Considering how antiquated the term “fuzz” is for today’s generation, this film’s title is fairly creepy, especially when taken out of context. But despite any potential moniker confusion, Hot Fuzz manages to outdo most average, American buddy-cop comedies – except for those times when it actively emulates average, American buddy-cop comedies. Fortunately, such instances are rare.
Following up 2005 sleeper hit, Shaun of the Dead, the Britlet triplets — actors Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, as well as director Edgar Wright — have returned. But this time, the mindless sloths are cops instead of zombies. Pegg plays Sergeant Nicholas Angel, a London police officer so outstanding that his superiors (wonderfully cameo’d by Bill Nighy and Martin Freeman) arrange to have him transferred because they’re tired of looking bad by comparison. He finds himself in the crime-free town of Sandford where he arrests Danny Butterman (Frost) before reporting to duty, and before realizing that Butterman is actually his new partner and the son of the town’s chief inspector (Jim Broadbent). But all is not as it seems in the sleepy little hamlet, and Angel, with assistance from his eager degenerate of a partner, investigates a suspicious rash of accidental deaths.
Pegg and Wright’s script mostly remains true to the same kind of offbeat humor that made Shaun a cult favorite, so much so that I’m hesitant to even complain about the long, typical, chase-and-shoot ending that echoes Lethal Weapon. After all, Mel Gibson could never be this funny — at least not intentionally.