SOTD? welcome to 2007! Bring on the Fuzz!

Rating: 10/10 (5 February 2007)

Hot Fuzz Edgar Wright Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Jim Broadbent, Timothy Dalton.
Words come to mind when watching a film of the immaculate value of a parody of action films, whilst being one itself. Just because they did it so well with Shaun of the Dead in the horror genre, why could it work a second time with the action genre, already way overdone?
It doesn't. Just kidding, no it is a well observed, coherent in being incoherent movie with nods towards Bruckheimer, Scott, the good one, Woo, Bay, themselves, Seagal, and Eastwood/Siegel among the many here.
It starts so formally, with a brilliantly straight cameo from Martin Freeman telling of the brilliance of PC Nicholas Angel, or should that be Angle? As he makes 'them look bad', them being his team, Freeman, Steve Coogan and Bill Nighy, sadly short, but great moments.
From this moment of forced moving to the countryside, hilariously worked out via A Scanner Darkly style spying, we see how truly job-hitched Angel is, not even having time to spend with his girlfriend, yet his plant gets more screen time and respect. We are then taken through the real world of travelling to Gloucestershire, in traditional Wright way, fast cuts, huge sounds, shaky cam awesomeness.
It's a beginning of true hilarity, first time in the town he rounds up teenage drinkers, oh so true, and the town has a hoody problem, always on their mobiles, it's like life on screen, but of course the bigger issue with a new sergeant here is of course that the swan has escaped. No, of course not, that's not as important as the living statue annoyance, curse them.
That first night we finally meet Danny Butterman, 'C*ntstable Butterman' as aptly named by 'The Andys', two detectives named Andrew, great name indeed, and we also find the time to see Bill Bailey, finally some screen time for him, as the receptionist, basically.
It's a tough film to truly explain without giving away some of the many great jokes and set pieces, but let's start with the darn plot: There's somethin' going' down in this here town, and it's not gonna be pretty. There's murder, sorry, accidents, no, wait, sorry, collisions, conspiracies, cults, constables and all manner of c-words.
The film is funny as well as being knowledgeable of not only action films, but thrillers too, with some of the greatest serial killing seen in films, like when Adam Buxton's dumb reporter sadly bites the big one, well, the big one kinda bites him, it's worse than the same scene in the Black Dahlia, and repeated much more often, but it's so hilariously disgusting. Pruning sheers are used imaginatively, i.e. no beheadings happen with them, actors are given the axe, there's a heat wave for a fridge entrepreneur, and there's a snap in store for the new Sergeant, or is there?
It's tense in some scenes, action packed in others, makes you look twice at the people in your local Somerfields, and it never deviates from being a true Action Thriller, with Comedies. And the best part is, Julia Deakin is given not only more screen time than Shaun, but more lines, hard to beat 'Hello' I know, but they do it.
By the time the twists have been settled, the western moments have set in and the crowd have revived from the dropkick to Granny framer's nose, the film once again picks up, it seems that everyone has a gun, and their mothers, and it will be bloody. Cue slow motion, loud action music with bass and John Woo style leaping, and a couple of one liners.
The thing that film failed to do which annoyed me slightly was one scene in Somerfields where the DVD cases are everywhere and a zombie like henchman is fighting Angel, he should have got a DVD, threw it, and realised it won't work, just that damn nod would perfect it, but then again since Timothy Dalton is so truly hilarious at being evil, and Jim Broadbent does good work in the most obvious of roles in this unobvious film, and Timothy Dalton gets some good gore going, the film is almost perfect.
It ranks with Shaun of the Dead indeed, a perfect second movie, and Edgar shows his geekiness in not only the references with dialogue, but some of the shots, straight out of Bad Boys II and Woo flicks. The editing is as kinetic and exciting as ever, the jokes always work, or try to then get a joke out of failing, once again it melds well, the music isn't as good as Shaun but as long as it's done like the Shaun album I'll be getting the CD, and it's one of those films that deserves, and thankfully was, played loudly and rocked on without stopping for breath for 2 hours, it hurt ;)
10/10 instant vintage cult classic comedy, more C's