I'll have another Cornetto please.

Rating: 9/10 (5 January 2015)

Fresh from the success of Shaun of the Dead comes Hot Fuzz, a refreshingly playful movie from the writing team of Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright. Playful in the sense of a buddy cop movie homage, comparison of policing in the US and UK and parodying the British love of small town murder mysteries.
Plucked from the mean streets of London and unceremoniously dropped in the sleepy village of Sandford in Gloucestershire, dedicated and by-the-book police officer Sgt Nicholas Angel (Pegg) finds himself in a town with zero crime rate yet an alarmingly high number of accidents. Angel is paired with the impressionable PC Danny Butterman (Nick Frost) who possesses a large belly and an even larger DVD collection. In the absence of a romantic lead for either character, the pair becomes engaged in a predictable homoerotic relationship just as in any of the movies Butterman so dearly loves. Frost's character has such a warm admiration for Pegg's intense, constantly serious Angel. The pair forms an excellent comedic double act in which they ably complement each other through both their facial expressions (Frost is amiable, prone to embarrassment and Pegg is questioning, prone to frowning) and their movements (illustrated perfectly with the fence jumping).
Inspector Frank Butterman (Jim Broadbent) – Danny's father – heads the local police force, all of whom are charmingly incompetent but it is the Andys (Rafe Spall and Paddy Considine) who steal each of their scenes undermining and gleefully insulting Angel at every opportunity. Instead, village matters are delegated to the Neighbourhood Watch Association (abbreviation unfortunate but intended of course) who are more preoccupied with winning yet another village prize. It is only after a serious of unfortunate events, or accidents as the Sandford Police refer to them, does Angel sense something is not quite right in this seemingly idyllic village.
Action and laughs tumble out of the film thick and fast, the frenetic pacing is helped by those rapidly edited shots every time a drink is poured and loved so much by Wright they are repeated throughout the Cornetto trilogy. Also plentiful are the references for any movie buff to be occupied throughout. Bad Boys 2 and Point Break are most obvious as Frost's Butterman finally gets in on the action he so desperately craves. Others point to the eerie atmosphere that such a place can generate as in the case of Straw Dogs and Wicker Man. TV also gets a look in with Sandford itself a cross between The Bill and The Vicar of Dibley. As the mystery unfolds there is even a tip of the hat towards the likes of Poirot, Marple, Morse et al.
Hot Fuzz possesses the hallmarks of Great British comedy – heavy use of puns, silliness and a celebration of the mundane – and is able to maintain the high laugh count even as the action occupies centre stage in the final quarter of the film. Though with the cast (a who's who of British sitcoms) seemingly having tons of fun amid all the action, it is hard not to want to join in with the whole thing.