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chris_gerribOn the recommendation of Cherie Priest I went to see the movie Hot Fuzz yesterday. It was a hoot!
Simon Pegg is making a career for himself of parodying movies that he really likes. Working with Nick Frost (who also stars in "Hot Fuzz") Pegg made a great zombie movie, Shaun of the Dead. In that movie, Simon played the world's greatest slacker.
Here, Simon is Sgt. Nick Angel, the exact opposite. He's a driven "gun cop" (British slang for armed policeman) working in London. The brass decides to send him out to the country, posting him to Sandford, where he's paired with a slacker cop played by Nick Frost. (Nick's character is only on the force because his dad is the town's Inspector of Police.)
Without going too spoilery, nothing happens in Sandford, which is good, because the local PD is home to a crew of incompetents. Except, there are these peculiar series of accidents. In the first third of the movie, five people die, all apparently accidents, although we know better. And this is the English countryside, so everybody has a licensed shotgun, or so we're told.
The movie is tightly plotted. Like its cousin the disaster flick, everything happens for a reason. Sgt. Angel discovers a huge gun cache in an early scene, which is critical to later events. We also learn that the Inspector is a fan of American Westerns, so later on, when we get to see him wearing a cowboy-style gun belt with twin revolvers, it's not a surprise.
As it turns out, the real evildoers are the Neighborhood Watch Association. Now, most NWAs are composed of middle-aged folk with too much time on their hands and a strong urge to be in other people's business. (I know - I got drafted to be on my local NWA.) Well, this is a neighborhood watch on steroids. The committee desperately wants to stay "Village of the Year" and is willing to kill anybody who gets in the way of that. And since the senior cop in town, the Inspector, is in on it, they do just that.
Well, Sgt. Angel, being a good cop, discovers this and tries to stop it. Remember that gun cache? Well, the guns come out of the evidence room (some still with evidence tags on them) and are used in the big shootout, which comprises the final third of the movie.
The final third is a hoot! The Neighborhood Watch is all packing heat, so we get a selection of middle-aged English character actors blazing away in the village square. One memorable cut is a 50-ish actress firing a Bren gun on full auto. Another involves a 40-ish actress riding a bike down the street, firing pistols from each hand. Despite all of this firepower, the body count is very low, with most of the NWA being merely wounded.
"Hot Fuzz" plays all of the buddy-cop-movie cliches to a T, with just the right mix of humor and seriousness. Pegg likes these kind of movies (as do I - they're a mindless roller coaster) so he delivers just enough action to please the fans. But it's also intelligent enough to appreciate if you're not a fan of the genre. You really should go see this movie.
Simon Pegg is making a career for himself of parodying movies that he really likes. Working with Nick Frost (who also stars in "Hot Fuzz") Pegg made a great zombie movie, Shaun of the Dead. In that movie, Simon played the world's greatest slacker.
Here, Simon is Sgt. Nick Angel, the exact opposite. He's a driven "gun cop" (British slang for armed policeman) working in London. The brass decides to send him out to the country, posting him to Sandford, where he's paired with a slacker cop played by Nick Frost. (Nick's character is only on the force because his dad is the town's Inspector of Police.)
Without going too spoilery, nothing happens in Sandford, which is good, because the local PD is home to a crew of incompetents. Except, there are these peculiar series of accidents. In the first third of the movie, five people die, all apparently accidents, although we know better. And this is the English countryside, so everybody has a licensed shotgun, or so we're told.
The movie is tightly plotted. Like its cousin the disaster flick, everything happens for a reason. Sgt. Angel discovers a huge gun cache in an early scene, which is critical to later events. We also learn that the Inspector is a fan of American Westerns, so later on, when we get to see him wearing a cowboy-style gun belt with twin revolvers, it's not a surprise.
As it turns out, the real evildoers are the Neighborhood Watch Association. Now, most NWAs are composed of middle-aged folk with too much time on their hands and a strong urge to be in other people's business. (I know - I got drafted to be on my local NWA.) Well, this is a neighborhood watch on steroids. The committee desperately wants to stay "Village of the Year" and is willing to kill anybody who gets in the way of that. And since the senior cop in town, the Inspector, is in on it, they do just that.
Well, Sgt. Angel, being a good cop, discovers this and tries to stop it. Remember that gun cache? Well, the guns come out of the evidence room (some still with evidence tags on them) and are used in the big shootout, which comprises the final third of the movie.
The final third is a hoot! The Neighborhood Watch is all packing heat, so we get a selection of middle-aged English character actors blazing away in the village square. One memorable cut is a 50-ish actress firing a Bren gun on full auto. Another involves a 40-ish actress riding a bike down the street, firing pistols from each hand. Despite all of this firepower, the body count is very low, with most of the NWA being merely wounded.
"Hot Fuzz" plays all of the buddy-cop-movie cliches to a T, with just the right mix of humor and seriousness. Pegg likes these kind of movies (as do I - they're a mindless roller coaster) so he delivers just enough action to please the fans. But it's also intelligent enough to appreciate if you're not a fan of the genre. You really should go see this movie.
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Date: 2007-04-30 08:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-01 02:29 am (UTC)