Hot Fuzz
The moment comes at about the halfway point in “Hot Fuzz,” the new film by co-writer/star Simon Pegg and co-writer/director Edgar Wright, who last hit comic and satirical paydirt with the 2004 geek fave “Shaun of the Dead.” It’s a moment of dialogue so perfectly timed, so out-of-the-blue, yet so in keeping with the film that the people in the audience who get the reference will laugh with wild hysterics. If you think I’m gonna spoil it here, you’re out of your mind.
You can’t really compare “Hot Fuzz” to “Team America: World Police,” its’ closest cinematic kin in destroying mindless action film cliches. There’s one fundamental reason why- whereas “Team America” was an out-and-out parody of the type of Jerry Bruckheimer-esque gunathons Americans flock to, not taking anything in itself too seriously, “Hot Fuzz”- like “Shaun of the Dead” before it- plays its’ story with a straight face, allowing us to relish in the absurdity of the film’s cliches while playing straight to them with dry wit. When Harry Knowles likened Pegg and Wright’s approach to that of Mel Brooks in his ’70s classics (“Blazing Saddles,” “Young Frankenstein”), he hit it right on the money. Wright and Pegg have full belief in their stories- even in “Shaun” adding some sly social commentary, like that in Romero’s “Dead” films, underneath the surface- resulting in note-perfect satire. So perfect in “Hot Fuzz,” in fact, that more than once, Wright and his collaborators- specifically editor Chris Dickens, cinematographer Jess Hall, and composer David Arnold (whose recent work for the Bond series gets tweaked with devious glee)- capturing, with wicked clarity, the same quick-cut, slickly shot action aesthetic of American action films we’ve seen for 20-odd years so well, you’d swear Tony Scott or Michael Bay were behind the camera orchestrating the pyrotechnics. The buddy movie genre also gets tweaked- or, more specifically, bitch-slapped- in not just the blatent homages to flicks like “Point Break” and “Bad Boys II” but also the homoerotic undertones that lie beneath every “Lethal Weapon” and “Rush Hour” actioner that gets churned out. True, Shane Black did all of this quite effortlessly in 2005’s underseen “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang,” but he was also one of its’ originators with his original “Lethal Weapon” screenplay. Wright and Pegg are outsiders with a taste for comic blood, and it’s scary how good their aim is.
The story? I mean, do you really want to know at this point? These things all have the same basic storyline anyway- you need me to spell it out for you? Fine. Pegg plays Nicholas Angel, a London supercop so good at his job (with a failed relationship as one of its’ casualties) that the brass does the only thing they can- transfer him out of London (dude, he’s making the rest of the force look bad) and into the quiet town of Sandford. All is quiet on the crimefighting front- a few underage drinkers here, an escaped swan there- until bodies start piling up. They all look like accidents, but Angel suspects something sinister- too often has this town had people die “accidentally” without digging deeper, which Angel risks doing with his new partner Danny Butterman (Nick Frost, who also played Pegg’s buddy in “Shaun of the Dead”), the son of the local police chief (with Oscar winner Jim Broadbent playing the sweet ol’ dad to the hilt) whose only exposure to crimefighting action comes from his massive DVD collection, which includes the forementioned titles, and setups the joke that shall not be spoiled here. Trust me- you’ll be glad I left it for the movie.
If you haven’t gotten the picture, I really liked this flick. It makes a great geek triple-header for the year with the “Grindhouse” double-bill (which Wright contributed the classic “Don’t!” trailer to), and in setting out to what it meant to do- stick it to Hollywood actioners that stopped generating real excitement years ago- succeeded where dim-bulb, lowest-common-denomenator comedies like “Date Movie,” “Scary Movie 4,” and (the unseen-by-me…for good reason) “Epic Movie” fail. They bring Hollywood to its’ knees, grab its’ head, and, well, I think you know where I’m going with this. Wright and Pegg are a dynamic duo- with Frost emerging, as he did in “Shaun,” as a concealed comic weapon they’re not afraid to pull- and, judging by the cameos offered by the liked of Steve Coogan (good), Bill Nighy (great), and Timothy Dalton (who should get an Oscar and beat Sean Connery over the head with it for his work here- “Buffy” fans will get it), we’re just seeing the beginning of what could be the best actor-director combo comedy’s seen since the glory days of Peter Sellers-Blake Edwards and Gene Wilder-Mel Brooks. Anyone who’s soaked in the blood of “A Shot in the Dark,” “Young Frankenstein,” and other films from those pairings know how high of praise that is.
