Movie Review

By Jared Duncan

Thursday, May 3, 2007

How do you follow a comedy as perfectly executed as 2004’s Shaun of the Dead? If you’re the winning team of director Edgar Wright and actors Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, apply the same formula to the cop genre, producing the even greater Hot Fuzz.

Pegg plays Sergeant Nick Angel, a London cop who is so good at his job that he’s making the rest of the department, including his superiors, look bad. To compensate, they transfer him to the sleepy town of Sanford, where everyone knows each other and the only emergency call involves a missing swan. There, he’s teamed up with Danny Butterman (Frost), who does exactly what the job requires of him: nothing.

While on the “beat,” the team discovers a number of suspicious accidents. As the accidents become more frequent, Butterman and Angel actually do some investigative work and encounter more than they bargained for.

For a filmmaking team to not fall into the sophomore slump and actually outdo their first picture is a rarity in Hollywood, but in this case, Hot Fuzz puts Shaun of the Dead to shame. Director Edgar Wright and company have seemly created a new genre: the smart parody film.

The film is hilarious, but Wright’s stylish direction deserves acclaim as well. That direction, along with the writing, puts the film above parody, much like Shaun of the Dead. These guys love the movies they’re poking fun at and that affection earns Hot Fuzz its five stars.

Rated R

2 hours

* * * * * out of 5 stars

 

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