Greenville's free alternative weekly

Days after seeing it for the first time I want to see Hot Fuzz again. Many times.

By Fred Richardson

In 2004 Edgar Wright (writing and directing) and Simon Pegg (Writing and starring) brought us Shaun of the Dead, a story of a man who realizes his potential during a zombie crisis. American audiences didn’t quite get it till the DVD release but SotD has become a favorite among genre fans. The same team now brings us Hot Fuzz, a buddy cop movie of epic referential greatness. Starting with a montage of Nicholas Angel’s (Pegg) training and early career in London, we discover a cop who is the embodiment of professionalism and excellence. And that’s the problem. He’s so good that his colleagues want him gone cause he make them look bad. So he gets sent to Sandford, a quiet country village in rural England.

So we get a bit of a fish out of water story with Sgt. Angel trying to adjust to a rural setting after the excitement of big city life. As in Sean of the Dead, Nick Frost plays Pegg’s pal, but this time we get to see the friendship develop. As Danny Butterman, Frost plays a kind of clueless but charming bumpkin with a HUGE collection of action movie DVDs.

There are references to other movies and pop culture in general throughout Hot Fuzz and that’s a large part of the appeal. The movie has an overall feel that evokes the 1973 version of The Wicker Man starring Edward Woodward (who has a featured role in Hot Fuzz). Actors, scenes, and references from Shaun of the Dead appear throughout the movie (including a subtle pellet gun bit) alongside riffs on The Omen, Point Break, and Bad Boys II to name just a few of the obvious. There are more subtle references like sound-alike music cues and Angel’s running style that cater to movie fanatics. There are doubtless many pages online that point these out in excruciating detail.

As for the rest of the cast, if you’re a fan of British cinema there are a lot of familiar faces. But we Americans would be lucky to recognize even a few. I didn’t catch Raiders of the Lost Ark’s villain Belloq Paul Freeman as the town priest and I can quote whole sections of Raiders from memory. But we all know Timothy Dalton from his brief and mediocre reign as James Bond in the space between Roger Moore and Pierce Brosnan. Here he redeems himself as a wonderfully over-the-top local business owner with comically sinister speech patterns and just too coincidental appearances at crime scenes.

So the plot progresses a bit and things get strange and deadly and fun fun fun.

Days after seeing it for the first time I want to see Hot Fuzz again. Many times. I hope it doesn’t get buried in the mix of movies opening around it, cause everyone needs to see this thing. It’s amazingly fun even if you don’t get all the references. When it comes out on DVD I’ll buy it regardless of special features and foist it upon everyone I know over and over.