Hot film making

Rating: 8/10 (19 March 2007)

This film, directed by Edgar Wright, is like an episode of "Midsomer Murders" or some Agatha Christie story directed by Quentin Tarantino. It is, of course, a take-off of police procedurals and action movies in general with enough references to other films to keep the buffs up all night. The cutting is truly amazing and the pace never flags. It's pretty gory but somehow good-humoured.
Sergeant Nick Angel (a wonderfully straight-faced Simon Pegg) is found to be so good at his job in the Metropolitan Police that he is an embarrassment, so his chief inspector (Bill Nighy) sends him to the country to cool his heels. He arrives in Sandford, Somerset (or thereabouts) and settles in well enough, but after a couple of suspicious deaths begins to realise that all is not well despite the surface calm. He teams up with one of the dimmer local cops and they investigate. Naturally the body count increases and it seems there is real evil about. The final shoot-out is something Clint Eastwood would be proud of.
One thing "Midsomer Murders", Poirot and the like share with this film is a great troupe of accomplished English character actors playing supporting roles. There's (rather surprisingly) Timothy Dalton, once a James Bond, playing a suspect supermarket owner, Anne Reid, Billie Whitelaw, Edward Woodward, and Stuart Wilson as other locals, Jim Broadbent as the avuncular Sandford police inspector and Martin Freeman, Steve Coogan and Bill Bailey (a double act) as various police persons. Even Peter Jackson the director is in there somewhere though I didn't spot him. But Simon Pegg, by staying so straight-laced throughout, makes the whole thing work. Nick Frost as his sidekick blends in well, though it is not such a demanding part.
Obviously the movie was made by a bunch of young people having fun (their previous effort was "Shaun of the Dead"). It might be bloody but there's not a dull moment, and the editing is worthy of a prize.