Week 21: Hot Fuzz

Possibly the world’s worst movie title? Mmmm….could be. Did I love it anyway? But of course. Deep down in my heart, I know that I am destined to befriend a group of dry, witty Brits. I will become the fish in their inner circle of chips. It is just meant to be. So if you belong to a group of dry, witty Brits and you live in the vicinity of Columbus, Ohio, look me up, chaps. I have pints and pints of beer waiting for you. And over those pints of beer, we will discuss a deep and enduring love for films like Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz.

I don’t need to go on here about how utterly perfect Shaun of the Dead is. It is simply brilliant. A perfect deadpan comedy…about zombies. Brilliant. If you haven’t seen it yet, do humanity a favor and go rent it right this minute. Or just turn on Comedy Central where it replays approximately 38 times each day. It will change your life.

Hot Fuzz stars the same bumbling hero/sidekick duo from Shaun. Only this time they are cops in a rural English town that bills itself as the Best Village in England. Naturally, our heroes uncover a much darker secret lurking behind the village’s cheery exterior and a hilarious bloodspree ensues. Simon Pegg, who stars and wrote the film, clearly hasn’t gotten over his adolescent love of horror and action movies and god bless him for it. It’s over-the-top mayhem made high-brow, and I loved it. Nothing beats seeing an old English granny pull out a semi-automatic machine gun and level a street.

Hot Fuzz started off rather slow, I must admit, but it picked up nicely about twenty minutes in and never looked back. I could have done without quite so much focus on the culminating fight/gun battles, but maybe that’s just me. The goofy gore was great though. And Nick Frost as the dim-witted sidekick, Danny Butterman, is so hilariously stupid that he steals the show. He plays the perfect oaf and he even bears a loveable resemblance to “Sloth” from the Goonies.

Fuzz isn’t the cinematic perfection that Shaun is, but it’s still pretty terrific. Next up on the Queue…yet another disc from our shoot-em-up friends at Deadwood. Hmmm…I wonder if they will curse needlessly and without any provocation every ten seconds? I’m on the edge of my seat…