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movie review - Hot Fuzz

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

Kokubunji, 2021.08.11

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.

rand()m quote

One day you will take a fork in the road, and you're going to have to make a decision about which direction you want to go. If you go one way, you can be somebody. You will have to make compromises and you will have to turn your back on your friends. But you will be a member of the club and you will get promoted and get good assignments. Or you can go the other way and you can do something [...] for yourself. If you decide to do something, you may not get promoted and get good assignments and you certainly will not be a favorite of your superiors. But you won't have to compromise yourself. To be somebody or to do something. In life there is often a roll call. That's when you have to make a decision. To be or to do.

—John Boyd, US Air Force