Phwwooooaarrrr, Geek Porn!!!

Rating: 7/10 (27 February 2007)

English quintessence is nothing if not the humble country village  that non-threatening, twee piece of rural idyll where everyone and everything has been unmoved by the monstrous engine of industrial and sociological change. In Britain, where programmes are commissioned for an imaginary constituency of women, old women and the very old who can't leave the house, such pastures have become of staple of popular drama, enlivened by the occasionally grim but statistically improbable murder. So what if they drag like sin, are 'gentle' to the point of coma and less slick than a camcorder movie made by a person with Parkinson's who broke the image stabiliser  there will always be an England and we must look at it whether we want to or not.
Hot Fuzz is what happens when English people brought up on American Action blockbusters and buddy cop gunfests but lacking any manifest gun culture of their own, mine the very funny conceit of recasting a plodding Sunday tea time rural murder mystery as a Michael Bay-style actioner. A great idea because what could be further away from the world of Tony Scott, Bay and co than Gloustershire and the St. Mary Mead-esquire village green? Its been done before  the comic strip made two very funny 'action' versions of the fall of the GLC and the Miners Strike in the American mould, but those were parodies  Fuzz in contrast is more a valentine to the Bruckheimer stable, played for laughs but not the self-referential bore it might have been. That it has to be a movie in its own right is apparent from the off because the frantic, machine gun style of Wright would be hard to live with for two hours if there was no story per say, just the ticking of cliché boxes. His crash zooms, whip pans and fitting camera operators are like someone shouting "I WENT TO FILM SCHOOL" in your ear for 2 hours but it's a love for the b-movie form that puts a big silly grin all over your face. That said it's pure fan-boy masturbation, conflating everything from the Wicker Man to Straw Dogs along with numerous other movie and T.V references. It stays on the right side of affectionate however and rather than simply jumping in with exchanges of fire and explosions, the clever script builds the story to a point where you can suspend your disbelief long enough to enjoy the terrifically overwrought, 12 gauge climax. 30 minutes of pure joy which is impossible to describe without using the tired cliché of 'its X meets Y' but that, in essence, is the formula for the whole movie.
Wright's direction plugs the gap left by the relatively sparse sprinkling of jokes as its OTT hyperactivity is part of the gag and complimented perfectly by some ludicrously rat a tat tat editing. The kind that makes it look as though the editor was buggering the AVID. This, plus the likable leads and spate of intrusive cameos from jobbing comedians keeps things buoyant but in keeping with its parent pictures  Bad Boys 2 and the like  its too long and the second act though never dull, starts to draw attention to its length so that the final half hour acts as a welcome corrective. Pegg mentioned on T.V that length was a problem for these pictures but seemed to think 2 hours was the optimum running time for such things. As a geek brought up on Eighties genre flicks he should know that most were about 20 minutes shorter than that and for good reason  you set it up, do the minimum to get the denouement and get out. See Back to the Future's perfectly judged 100 odd minutes for a masterclass in how to do this. If it were made today it'd be 2 and half hours long  have we all gone crazy or have filmmakers just become more self-indulgent? There's just 100 minutes of good material here but if you can forgive the padding Hot Fuzz is nicely judged, slam bang entertainment. Wright is terrific but it would be interesting to see what a pure Edgar looked like by which I mean a picture he envisioned without an all night trawl through his DVD collection....good as it undoubtedly is.