Hot Fuzz
After the success of
their spin on George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead, Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright
have returned, and this time they’ve aimed much bigger. This takes in the differences between the US
style of cop movie and the British as well as going on a tour of genre itself
as though attempting rival Tarantino. Perhaps that is the ideal refuge for these autuers today who have been so nourished on the positives of less
serious cinema. We now get talented
film-makers who give us a reflexive fascination for originality rather than
originality itself. As much as Hot Fuzz wants be to a no-holds barred, adrenaline fuelled
thrill ride, it’s also a very adept film which shows a conceptual flair far above the mediocrity of British film
comedy and those Hollywood skits on French and Saunders where Edgar Wright began his career. Although, I have to say I was having my doubts for a bit with Hot
Fuzz.
Simon Pegg is such a
good cop they’ve decided he needs to be relocated to the quieter and less criminal
outback of provincial Somerset. Critics
haven’t been particularly bothered about the opening but it had nothing of the
sureness of Shaun of the Dead. Even
Nick Frost’s arrival doesn’t spark the film out of first gear. As much as Hot Fuzz wants to show its
mastery over genre cop movies it fails
to even begin a proper set-up. The
action-style flourishes of editing feel
forced and jar against the inactivity of the film. It soon becomes clear we’re getting a dose of small-time village life as the
quintessential tone for British
Horror. The Wicker Man and Straw Dogs
are as much a part of Hot Fuzz as overblown Hollywood action movies like Point
Break and Bad Boys. A chase after a petty shoplifter leads to an
inspired moment as Pegg and Wright
quote Shaun of the Dead (and Point-Break) with a wooden row of backyard fences
to overcome. Nick Frost is at last
stealing the film. Simon Pegg is very
good, there is a striking ‘Omen’ moment
where his reaction saves the scene from being merely parasitic, but its Nick Frost, the sidekick, who is the stand-out
actor in Hot Fuzz.
If Shaun of the Dead
ends on a truly lovely moment as a zombie movie mutated into a Buddy movie
with Queen’s ‘You’re my Best Friend’ then
Hot Fuzz is a joy when Pegg and
Frost at last get to go to the pub
properly, for beers and not the cranberry Pegg’s starchy policeman has been
drinking previously. Afterwards, both
asleep on the couch after an evening of cosy male-bonding, drinking and watching cop movies we hear
Martin Lawrence in Bad Boys 2 intone, “Shit just got real”. Indeed, things are now hotting up. There are a series of grisly murders to be
investigated that only Nicholas Angel
(Simon Pegg) can solve. As a detective
story it holds up surprisingly well, and invites a satisfying second viewing
even though the best clues are in spotting the numerous references outside the
plot.
The supporting cast features Edward Woodward, Billie
Whitelaw, Timothy Dalton, Paddy Considine, Jim Broadbent – I expected to see Peter
Vaughn somewhere but alas he’s absent. The tone is all over the place, at times it’s virtuosic. The score repeatedly underlines this as an
accomplished and well-realised film. Okay, it’s isn’t anything more than an expert work-through of soundtrack
clichés but David Arnold at last gets a film that is ideal for his talents. The
drama is cranked up and plays out in
the kind of absurd endgame that has been so pent up it works more as a resounding in-joke than as the kind of dramatic pay-off seen in the
films it’s gleefully ripping off. As a
comedy it works but raises the stakes rather with the games it plays. When Angel falls into a secret catacomb it’s a bravura moment of subversion which is
a good deal more complex than most comedies. There is an impressive swagger to the story, it does go past parody but I think the
caricature element left me wondering if
Edgar Wright will ever direct anything sincere. It gets so filmic it feels artificial in the protracted
finish. Still, it’s easily the best British film since Dead
Man’s Shoes, and the double act of Pegg and Frost are as good as any in cinema
today. Like Shaun of the Dead it never
quite escapes the cinematic world but who cares when it’s done so well.
Charles Maclean
Recent Comments