Hot Fuzz (Widescreen Edition)
Studio: Uni Dist Corp. (mca) Release Date: 08/26/2008 Run time: 121 minutes Rating: R
In Shaun of the Dead, it was the zombie movie and the anomie of modern life. In Hot Fuzz, Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg set their sights on the buddy cop blockbuster and the eccentric English village. The two worlds collide when overachieving London officer Nicholas Angel (Pegg) is promoted to sergeant. The catch is that he's being transferred to Agatha Christie country. His superiors (the comic trifecta of Martin Campbell, Steve Coogan, and Bill Nighy) explain that he's making the rest of the force look bad. On the surface, Sandford is a sleepy little burg where the most egregious crimes, like loitering, are committed by hoody-sporting schoolboys. In truth, it's a hotbed of Willow Man-style evil. Upon his arrival, Chief Butterman (Jim Broadbent) partners Angel with his daft son, Danny (Nick Frost, Pegg's Shaun co-star), who aspires to kick criminal "arse" like the slick duo in Bad Boys II. When random citizens start turning up dead, he gets his chance. With the worshipful Danny at his side, Angel shows his cake-eating colleagues how things are done in the big city. As in Shaun, their previous picture, Wright and Pegg hit their targets more often than not. With the success of that debut comes a bigger budget for car chases, shoot-outs, and fiery explosions. Though Hot Fuzz earns its R-rating with salty language and grisly deaths, the tone is more good-natured than mean-spirited. A wall-to-wall soundtrack of boisterous British favorites, like the Kinks, T-Rex, and Sweet, contributes to the fast-paced fun. --Kathleen C. Fennessy
Hot Fuzz (Widescreen Edition) Accessories
 Shaun of the Dead
Knocked Up (Unrated Widescreen Edition)
Zodiac - The Director's Cut (Two-Disc Special Collector's Edition)
Shooter (Full Screen Edition)
Blades of Glory (Widescreen Edition)
Children of Men (Widescreen Edition)
300 (Two-Disc Special Edition)
Disturbia (Widescreen Edition)
Breach (Widescreen Edition)
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Hot Fuzz (Widescreen Edition) Reviews
Danny (Frost) is his hapless partner and bane, short on experience but big in enthusiasm. The support cast is allstar, if you're British, and must have been a director's dream. Baby Cromwell Angel becomes suspicious as the accident mortality rate in the village begins to rise, only to be held back by the cluelessness of his colleagues and bizarreness of the locals. Truly funny in places and very watchable on the whole, it builds to an over-the-top finale that gets away with it precisely because the characters are so likeable. At times the film almost had a Wallace and Gromit feel to it, and you can tell it was made with with a lot of affection.
Simon Pegg and Nick Frost are superb in this cracking little British comedy. One of my faves. Jim Broadbent must be fast approaching the 'national treasure' level, as Sgt. Frank Butterman, stalwart of the Police station and village. Yours,. Nick Angel (Pegg) is the London supercop who is so good he's making all his colleagues look fools, and so is shunted off to the 'sticks' and utter boredom - or so it seems.
Pegg and Frost are of course great on screen together; there are layers upon layers of reference, visual and verbal. Especially for those who grew up watching crime dramas and detective movies, you will experience a strange and wonderful sense of deja vu. Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg demonstrate brilliantly how to use cliches to create intelligent and hysterical comedy.
This movie is a hilarious send-up of the cop genre, but it's also a decent action flick in its own right. We loved it. If you're in need of a laugh, I highly recommend this movie. To get rid of him, management has him transferred to the sleepy little village of Sandford. A philandering couple is found beheaded on a local highway. When we watched Hot Fuzz, we laughed our patooties off. Because he's received so many commendations and made so many arrests (400% more than any other officer in London), he's making his co-workers (and supervisors) look bad. There, he gets stuck with an inexperienced partner (who happens to be the son of the police inspector) and finds difficulty making the transition from lean, mean, policing machine to do-nothing keeper of a town where very little crime is ever committed.
A reporter from the town's newspaper is killed by a piece of falling stone from an old church roof. The truth behind the rash of deaths is comic gold. The movie tells the story of police officer Nicholas Angel, a top cop in London. You will recognize several other cast members as well: Bill Nighy as the Met Chief Inspector, Jim Broadbent as Inspector Frank Butterman, Timothy Dalton as Simon Skinner, even a tiny role by Cate Blanchett, who plays Nicholas' former girlfriend.
But then, odd things begin to happen. Pegg is marvelous as the orderly, buttoned-up Nicholas, and Nick Frost holds down his side of the script as the naive Danny Butterman (Nick's partner). A man is blown up after a gas leak in his house. Local authorities insist that all of these deaths are just accidents, but Nicholas begins to think there's more to it than that.
There were knee-slapping lines and situations throughout, with character-driven comedy playing just as large a role as all the funny plot-driven stuff. For the rest of the movie, Nicholas and his bumbling partner try to unearth the thread that links all the murders.
this movie starts off kind of slow, but if you keep with it you'll be duly rewarded with its hilarity.
You gotta love the little cameo with Bill Nighy, that guy is just fabulous. He is a natural comedian, and he doesn't even need to try. They even reused a few of the same actors. He has a nice little role here as well. It just sounds better coming from a Brit.
I was also pleased to see Timothy Dalton in this. I've always found that British comedies are much funnier and wittier than American ones. Nick Frost is also a great funny sidekick. But it is also funny, for the most part. If you love British humour, you will probably like this movie. Simon Pegg oozes hilarity. It's just weird. Anywho, Hot Fuzz starts off somewhat normal but then halfway through the film, it gets a tad weird.
What you think the plot is about is not what it really is, and it just comes at you all of a sudden from a million different directions. Its a sort of who-dunnit with a funny twist. The film certainly keeps you entertained and interested. The gags are funny, the characters are even funnier and the film is stylised in the same vein of Shaun of the Dead, which is by far funnier than this. I think it has something to do with their overly dry humour and their love for the F-bomb. Oh, and the excess of blood and gore is also a cool and unexpected treat.
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