Superb

Rating: 10/10 (7 February 2007)

I saw Hot Fuzz at a gala preview screening and cannot recommend it highly enough.
I was a little sceptical having seen the trailers... I feared that the team that brought us Shaun of the Dead were to be resting on the laurels after the success of their previous film. I couldn't have been more wrong.
Suffice to say, if you liked Shaun of the Dead or the TV series Spaced, you will love Hot Fuzz. Simon Pegg is brilliant in a surprisingly straight role as the hot-shot cop whose proficiency on the force (or "service" as he repeatedly refers to it) sees him relocated to a sleepy countryside village for making his co-workers look bad in comparison.
The first 20 mins are a little bit laugh-free, but once Nick Frost's wonderfully naive village policeman enters the picture, things pick up immensely. The film gathers pace all the way through and leads to an amazingly action-packed and hilarious finale which manages to mix extreme violence, tension and laughs to an even greater genre-defying degree than Shaun of the Dead.
This movie subverts the cop buddy action movie in a very similar way to the way in which Shaun of the Dead put a new spin on the zombie genre. If you're familiar with British comedy, you will recognise a slew of cameos and supporting roles from some of the best in the business - including Steve Coogan and Bill Bailey whose role is revealed in one hilarious moment to be not all that it initially seemed!
Timothy Dalton is also wonderful as a shamelessly panto-style villain.
I must also mention one of the most hilariously graphic on-screen deaths I've ever seen, simply because it is so unexpectedly grizzly. You'll know it when you see it...but prepare yourself from the moment that the church fÃªte begins! And also some extreme violence in and around a Somerfield supermarket, which really underlines the comedic success of the film - the mixing of the action-packed and visceral with the quaint and mundane.
By the power of grayskull, you must see this film!