Hot Fuzz

Starring: Simon Pegg, Martin Freeman, Bill Nighy Directed by: Edgar Wright Runtime: 121 min. Rated: R Release date: April 20, 2007 - More Info
READER RATINGS:
8.3 OVERALL	Smart . . . . . . . . 9.1 Sexy . . . . . . . . . 4.7 Funny . . . . . . . . 9.6

The Hooksexup Review

Having heartily skewered Romero-inspired zombie flicks in the 2004 cult hit Shaun of the Dead, director Edgar Wright and writer-actor Simon Pegg now turn their attention to American cinema's true plague: the Bruckheimer-derived buddy-cop picture. Their cheekiest idea this time is to dispense with the genre's usual wild-eyed renegades: Hot Fuzz's ostensible hero is one Nicholas Angel (Pegg), a doggedly by-the-book bobbie whose sterling arrest record and unimpeachable sense of professional ethics threaten to make the rest of London's police force look incompetent at best, wholly corrupt at worst. He's therefore transferred against his will to a quaint, cozy English village, where his new partner turns out to be the town drunk (Nick Frost, once again the ideal shambolic sidekick) and a typical day's work involves issuing a summons for jaywalking. Until, that is, various townsfolk begin meeting with mysterious "accidents," invariably in the vicinity of the village's unctuous excuse for a business mogul (Timothy Dalton).

Movies like Bad Boys II and Point Break are already more than halfway to self-parody, so it's remarkable how much comic mileage Hot Fuzz gets from shots of dorky English dudes strutting in slow-mo as a hot-orange fireball explodes directly behind them. It helps a great deal that Pegg, a ferrety screen presence whose entire head sometimes seems to be receding, possesses both pitch-perfect timing and surprising range; he's as magnificently uptight here as he was gloriously bewildered in Shaun of the Dead. But while nobody will fail to bust a gut laughing, it's hard to understand why a goofy lark like this should clock in at more than two hours. By the final half hour, it's hard to tell whether Hot Fuzz qualifies as spoof or straight-faced homage; Wright and company are having so much fun blowing shit up that their movie eventually threatens to become as tiresome as its targets. Save some of this stuff for the deleted-scenes section of the DVD, fellas. — Mike D'Angelo

Other Reviews

LA Weekly
Scott Foundas
"Hot Fuzz harbors an affectionate (rather than cynical) attitude toward its blockbuster forefathers that sets it miles apart from the recent spate of wan Hollywood parody movies (Date Movie, Epic Movie, et al.). For most of its running time, it's an enjoyably unpretentious celebration of the guilty pleasure [of] a stupid-as-all-get-out car chase or watching things blow up real good."
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Variety
Derek Elley
"Shaun of the Dead [creators] come up with a sustained genre parody that's equally funny but (maybe in deference to the genre) much more pumped up."
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Village Voice
Robert Wilonsky
"Hot Fuzz is a cult film writ humongous — a send-up of Hollywood spectacles that's far bigger and better than anything to which it pays homage."
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New York Magazine
David Edelstein
"Hot Fuzz is fun, and it's nice to see all the English character actors who aren't busy in Harry Potter films, but it lacks its predecessor's freshness. Small-town English Fascism has been spoofed at least as far back as The Avengers, and the hero's odyssey doesn't have that archetypal Joseph Campbell kick."
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Your Reviews

I'm in the minority here. But justified, as I liked Shaun of the Dead and Pegg's UK TV show Spaced. About 1/2 too long, loud, boring, and unfunny. Almost exactly like the Bruckheimer movies this is meant to parody, which is kind of creepy. It's a bad sign when just about the only good bits are fat/stupid jokes at Nick Frost's character's expense.

posted by johnny_yesno on 5/18/2007 6:35:13 PM

I just saw this one. I no longer have an ass because I laughed it off. This was a practically perfect parody. Maybe a few minutes too long, but that's the only thing I could find wrong with it.