British Cinema Classic: Hot Fuzz

After making a name for themselves with the 'Cool Britannia' TV show Spaced, and following the success of Shaun Of The Dead, Writer/Director crew Simon Pegg, Edgar Wright and Nick Frost embarked on their next parody mission: the buddy cop genre. Fueled with cracking British wit and dynamite comedic dialogue, the three gave the world probably it's greatest creation to date: Hot Fuzz. Hot Fuzz is so much more than a comedic take on the cliched buddy cop genre. SO much more than it in fact not only becomes what it mocks, it becomes a classic example of it.


In 2006, Hot Fuzz was released to the world. Hoards of Spaced and Shaun of the Dead fans raced to the cinema's to catch the newest film from their favourite trio. But the film almost gets lost in the fan boy hype and passed along as another frat boy brand humor movie. The film follows Sergeant Nicholas Angel(Simon Pegg) who is so good at his job as a cop in London that the force, which he has made look bad by out doing them so enormously, votes to have him oved to a small village far from the city lights. The village is Sanford and it is the typical small village where veryone knows everyone and it is almost like the rest of the world doesn't exist. Angel soon fines that Sanford's crime rate has been at zero for going on ten years now and his skills are obsolete. He arrests, then unwillingly becomes the friend of the police chief's son, Danny Butterman, who idolizes Nicholas. Nicholas soon finds that Danny's perception of what a cop does has been molded by cop films such as Point Break and Bad Boys II. When members of the community begin to be murdered and the people of the village pass it off as accidents, Nicholas and Danny dig for the truth. What they discover is the village's most influential people are members of a cult like neighborhood watch squad who 'take care' of outsiders who threaten their way of life, or as they put it "the grater good".


Hot Fuzz works, much like the film Scream, on numerous levels. It's first level is to simply take it as a buddy cop movie and then dismiss it. This is foolish for the film offers so much more. The next level is the film homages. Hundreds of cop films are referenced or parodied in Hot Fuzz from obscure French films such as 'The Bitch' to more modern Hollywood films like Bad Boys II (which Danny asks Nicholas a number of times if he's seen), Die Hard and Point Break. The next level is the acting. Most parody films feature over the top, hammed up acting merely for laughs. Hot Fuzz makes it audience roll on the floor with it's sharp dialogue and witty deliveries. Simon Pegg plays Nicholas Angel as the straight man all the way through, never having his character come to the realization that he is no longer in London and instead in a small village some hundreds of miles away. Even the bumbling character of Danny isn't played over the top, but rather innocently. Timothy Dalton also appears, returning to form playing the sinister ring leader, the owner of the village's Wal Mart-esuqe supermarket.


Never once does Hot Fuzz go over the edge or try to be a slapstick movie. Even the editing gives it a gritty, serious feeling. This is clearly the niche that Pegg, Wright and Frost have carved out for themselves as Spaced and Shaun of the Dead are made in identical fashion. The film is so revered that even Quentin Tarantino did an audio commentary track on the films Blu Ray release. The film was obviously made by three guys that love each other and what they do. It's not often that an action movie comes out of Britain that is this good and this universal. Not since the glory days of Guy Ritchie has British cinema been this good. Hot Fuzz is without a doubt a British Cinema Classic.

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