The "plot virus" strikes again – in yet another comedy with great potential.

Rating: Null/10 (11 December 2014)

HF could have been one of the Top Ten comedies of all time, if only it had continued the style and pace of the first 40 minutes or so. Unfortunately, its writers fell into a standard trap that has ruined or at least lessened countless comedies. I refer, of course, to comedies with potential, not garbage that didn't have potential to begin with: all those Adam Sandler, Jennifer Aniston and David Schwimmer duds.
Movies such as HF remind me why I'm a proponent of the ZAZ, Monty Python, Jerry Seinfeld and Sascha Baron Cohen schools of comedy, i.e. types of writing in which gags are always the priority with no room for sentimentality or preaching (neither of which are a major problem in HZ, BTW), and where the plot is only secondary, or preferably even in 100th place. People watch comedies to have a laugh; only morons watch them for the action scenes or to follow a story closely.
HF starts off wonderfully, with its impeccable first half-hour brimming with laughs and perfect comedic timing. Meanwhile, a grain of doubt started creeping up: "this can't go on for the duration; I bet the movie dissolves in a needless crime plot and then finishes off with standard, mindless, unfunny action scenes". Unfortunately, I was mostly right. Just as I'd feared, in this so-called "crime comedy" the plot eventually wins over the gags. During the first half-hour, HF is 99% comedy, but by the half-way mark, it's 90% crime/action, 10% (good) gags. In other words, the crime takes over the laughs and we're left with just another episode of "Midsummer Murders" instead of a constantly funny movie that's supposed to provide a continual barrage of gags.
Most Hollywood comedies have a very weak last quarter, or even half, simply because the formulaic/commercial school of comedy demands that the plot has a beginning, a development, and a conclusion - meaning that there is no place for humour (or very little space for it) once the plot comes near or exactly at its point of conclusion. Indeed, the second half of the movie is a mystery flick, which then predictably switches gears to even more pointless action scenes, which are predictably not funny.
Show me an extended action segment that's funny – in any comedy ever made - and I will show you Sean Penn writing an essay without 280 spelling mistakes and over 100 grammatical errors. The shoot-out in the shopping center wasn't funny; it was merely formulaic kiddie stuff. Slightly original, I'll give them that, but ultimately pathetic compared to what the movie promised in its first half-hour, with its clever dialogue and fun parody. The outdoor chases and shootouts are no better; this was a cop-out: it is far easier to the predictable - unfunny – easy-to-write thing than to actually roll up your sleeves and make a true effort to conclude the film with a bunch of laughs rather than fairly corny sight-gags.
A far better idea would have been to outright spoof the entire cop genre – sort of in the "Naked Gun" vein – i.e. WITHOUT succumbing to the "plot trap" that so many comedy writers fall into. Simon Pegg is a very good comedian and even better writer, but he will become a movie great only if he learns that comedies need to consist of 100% pure, unadulterated, undistilled, unschmaltzified humour and that a comedy needs to be a non-interrupted barrage of gags devoid of "serious" moments not to mention sentimentality, even if only very brief. Only this kind of approach works, usually. HF does have a brief moment or two when it gets slightly soppy or whatever. Sorry, Pegg, but you can't set us up with cartoon characters and then expect us to take them seriously in a dramatic way, as well. You just can't have your cake and eat it too.
Besides, nearly every (commercial) comedy overstays its welcome after 90 minutes. 2 hours is simply too long. They could have made a tight 90-minute collection of great sight gags and one-liners, but instead they had to "pepper" it up i.e. dilute it with unnecessary plot crap. I laughed my ass off during the first quarter, but after that I watched the movie with a mostly straight face – and my face is the ultimate judge of how good a comedy is; I trust it implicitly.
You know how you deal with the "comedy-movie plot trap"? You're writing a comedy and want to focus on the gags rather than have to worry how you'll wrap up the movie? Well, you do what the Pythons did in "Holy Grail" and "Life of Brian": you suddenly end the movie with a totally absurd scene. THAT'S the way to go; you get to keep the laughs at a steady pace right up until the end, while still providing a good ending. Unfortunately, not many comedians understand this, or think far too conventionally (when it comes to structure, at least) to be able to make such adventurous leaps of imagination in their writing.
HF excels in its casting. These days it is rare to come across a comedy that has such a strong cast, and so many familiar and competent faces rather than a bunch of half-wit, in-bred nepotists.