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movie review - Hot Fuzz

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

This is an over-the-top cop-in-trouble movie in the vein of "Bad Boys II". I mean the cops in this one literally watch that movie in-movie. Starring Simon Pegg as an incredibly self-serious Big City Cop, and Nick Frost as a barely-functioning Small Town Cop, the plot revolves around the former coming to town and despite a series of high-friction encounters with the local police force, begins to investigate a series of suspicious deaths. Before you know it, weapons caches are turning up and it's pretty clear that some sort of land-development scheme is behind a series of murders.

But that's not actually what's going on, and what is behind them is what at once separates the wheat from the chaff and keeps the whole thing firmly in tongue-in-cheek territory. When the bullets seriously begin to fly everyone's either with the killers or they're not.

It's sometimes hard to tell with British movies when they're deliberately aiming for parody and when they're just depicting the society as it is. But an early scene with the Big City Cop's downfall is very clear. A trio of delightful cameos really nails it.

Strongly recommended.