Testa's Takes: 'Hot Fuzz'

Wednesday, May 09, 2007

By Matthew Testa

‘Hot Fuzz’
Directed by Edgar White
Written by Edgar White and Simon Pegg
With Simon Pegg (Nicholas Angel), Nick Frost (Danny Butterman), Timothy Dalton (Simon Skinner) and Bill Nighy (Chief Inspector)
Rated R for violent content including some graphic images, and language.
Aiming its ample wit and copious firearms at bullet-heavy Hollywood pics like “Bad Boys” and “Point Break,” the English comedy “Hot Fuzz” is a riotous parody of American action movies. But the film earns its right to blast such easy targets as Hollywood octane flicks by poking equal fun at British stereotypes.

Top London cop Nicholas Angel (even his name is lifted straight from a Jerry Bruckheimer script) is obsessed with police work. Played with a David Caruso-like squint and an authoritative stiffness by Simon Pegg, Angel’s attention to detail and by-the-book assertiveness have made him the best patrolman on the force, and that’s not sitting well with his superiors. Angel is so good at his job that he’s too good. Because he’s making the rest of the department look ineffective, he’s banished (in a very funny scene featuring cameos by Bill Nighy and Steve Coogan) to a tiny shire in the English countryside.

The town has been voted Best Village in England two years running and could not appear more devoid of crime. A country doctor ambles about in a herringbone jacket and tweed cap, the local gardening doyenne is a championship floral arranger and the amiable police force sits about eating chocolate cake and ice cream all day. Accustomed to battling tough street crime and bank robberies, Angel now responds to calls about uneven hedgerows and a swan on the loose.

But something appears off in this eerily perfect town, particularly whenever Angel rubs elbows with the inordinately menacing grocery merchant Simon Skinner (Timothy Dalton, employing his Shakespearean intensity – so misapplied in his Bond films – to good comic effect here).

When people in the town start turning up dead, Angel suspects foul play. But even his fellow policemen think he’s paranoid. Only his boyish sidekick Danny (Nick Frost) has any ambition for crime solving. An aficionado of American action flicks who has memorized dialogue from “Point Break,” Danny worships Angel and longs for gunplay.  Danny may get his chance to come into his own as a cop, while Angel has a thing or two to learn about having a good time.

“Hot Fuzz” succeeds not only through satire but because its makers are so adept at handling the muzzle-flashing action scenes they parody. And by summoning inventively nasty ways for the kindly town folk to be killed off, the film also delivers a dose of gore that both mimics the operatic bloodlust of Hollywood action pictures and recalls the distinctly British and gloriously naughty gags of Monty Python.

Interstitially-placed, quickly edited montages of police signage, bulletproof vests being velcroed on, lockers slamming and other miscellany, all cut to the sound of bullets firing, are a clever send-up of the ham-handed techniques of shows like “CSI: Miami.” Pegg has clearly borrowed a few grimaces here from the indulgent acting style of such network procedurals.

Lord knows it’s time someone put those shopworn series under arrest.
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Testa's Takes: 'Hot Fuzz' | Planet JH News Article: Movie Reviews

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