Movies You Could Netflix

Hot Fuzz
You don’t usually see parodies that are as loving and reverential to their source material as Shaun Of The Dead was. These movies frequently fall into the Scary Movie-type bastardization that is not only disrespectful to its inspiration, but is also painfully unfunny as a bonus. A spoof on zombie movies that was released in 2004, Shaun Of The Dead was the rare film that was not only a hilarious comedy but was also a worthy entry into the genre that it was skewering. The creative forces behind that film, star Simon Pegg and director Edgar Wright, have attempted to take their successful formula and translate it from zombie movies to action films with their latest, Hot Fuzz. Unlike the unquestioned success of Shaun Of The Dead, results are decidedly mixed this time around. Pegg plays Nicholas Angel, a London police officer who’s so efficiently successful that he makes the rest of the force look bad. As a result, the London brass transfers him to the sleepy village of Sandford where the biggest criminal problems are living statues and missing swans. Angel is treated like a celebrity by the Sandford citizens, even more so after apprehending underage drinkers on the night before his first official day with the Sandford force. In struggling to acclimate himself to unfamiliar (and quiet) surroundings that include a pacified chief of police, completely inept detectives, and a total fuck-up of a partner (Nick Frost, Shaun Of The Dead) who worships action movies like Point Break and Bad Boys II (and who happens to be the son of the chief), Angel becomes a broken man. A broken man, that is, until a series of puzzling murders begins to plague the calm little village. This gives Angel a heretofore missing purpose as the Sandford force is loathe to chalk the spree up to anything more than a series of unbelievable accidents. To say any more would be to spoil the rest of the plot, but the surprising gore of the gruesome murders kick-starts the action and leads to a balls out over-the-top action movie finale that saves the film at the very last moment. Pegg and Wright are much more deliberate in setting up Hot Fuzz’s action than they were in Shaun Of The Dead, leading to a sluggishness and a sense that the movie is dragging on a bit too long. It holds fast to many notorious action movie conventions to good effect as there are referential nods to various films (like the aforementioned Point Break and Bad Boys II), but where Pegg and Wright have miscalculated their ability to translate Shaun Of The Dead’s success is in their desire to craft too much of an action film while forgetting to balance with it the comedy aspect that made their previous film so unique. The ratio of laughs to testosterone-driven action lags well behind what was seen in Shaun Of The Dead, and even the humor that they do include is not nearly as clever as it wants to be. Still, its crazy finale saves Hot Fuzz from disappointment, but you’re still left wondering how the brilliance of Shaun Of The Dead wasn’t able to carry over this time. Was it lightning in a bottle? Or is Hot Fuzz just a sophomore slump? Only time will tell which category Hot Fuzz falls into but for now, call it fairly entertaining but not quite as good as it should have been.

Dirty Rating: 76/100

Hot Fuzz On Metacritic
Hot Fuzz On Rotten Tomatoes