Hot Fuzz is the new Simon Pegg/Nick Frost/Edgar Wright film. You know? The people who brought you Shaun of the Dead, and more importantly, Spaced.
This time around we have Simon Pegg’s diligent Sgt. Angel being transferred from the Met, where he’s showng everyone else up with his tremendous drive and arrest rates, to rural Gloucestershire, where things aren’t conducted at quite as high pace as they are in London… Or are they?
Nick Frost plays PC Danny Butterman, in a station full of archetypes, including “The Andys” (a pair of CID detectives that have strolled in from the set of Life on Mars), Olivia Coleman’s double entendre-laden Doris, Edward Woodward’s citizen liaison (a nod towards The Equalizer with his character) and Jim Broadbent’s inspector. Every face is recognisable, including various townsfolk (“Sandford” is described as a village, but feels more like a small market town to me. It does have a branch of Somerfield after all), not least of which is Timothy Dalton’s pantomine villain. Such is this team’s star in the firmament at the moment, it feels as though Pegg only has to pick up the phone and familiar faces sign up immediately.
A series of “accidents” happen around and about the place, but only Angel (or Angle as Adam Buxton’s local journalist would have it) is seeing the real truth. There’s something darker going on in Sandford than the possible threat of hoodies or the living statue that keeps appearing in the townsquare.
There are pop-culture references aplenty, and here’s hoping that they’ll get their own subtitle track on the DVD when it’s released. But the film is probably just a bit slow for a comedy. It’s one hour fifty-six minutes long which is just about half an hour too much. It’s the middle bit that needs cropping where there’s a fine line being trodden between knowing nods to melodrama, and attempts at, well, actual drama.
There are plenty of laughs, although they don’t come as frequently as I’d have liked. And some of the cinematic devices used are little well-worn, like the fast-cuts used to indicate Angel’s incredible work ethic.
The finale is great fun though, as we get what’s essentially the finish to a film like Bad Boys II (referenced directly more than once) but in a quiet English village. It’s a pistol packing sequence that’s pastiching (the again referenced in dialogue) Straw Dogs as well as genre Hollywood fare.
Overall, it’s absolutely worth seeing, but is perhaps a little off the best form I know that this team is capable of. That said, it’s a level higher than most garbage that passes for comedy on our screens. Roll on La Triviata should it actually happen (Did Jonathan Ross mention it in his interview with Pegg before Christmas? I thought he did).