[Movies] Hot Fuzz (2007) Review

I finally got to catch Hot Fuzz on HBO today.

I know, I know, you're all looking at this entry in a funny way right now thinking "Why only now?" or "What kind of a geek are you?" or even "LOSER! It's about time!" and other thoughts of that nature. I'm sorry, okay? I've yet to find to on "Asian version" DVD and I don't feel all that keen to download a movie like that - I want to see it in the living room with the bigger TV and our decent little mini-theater sound system. That's only fair, right? Does that help me salvage some geek points?

It probably won't help that I caught it through sheer accident and not me doing the right thing in terms of proper geeky research into when the movie would be out an such. Were it not for my partner coming home with food, thus forcing me to go downstairs and leave the computer, I never would have caught it. It's a shame he was too tired to watch as well - he fell asleep a bit before I discovered it was showing and resisted my attempts to wake him up and get him as excited about the movie as I was.


Hot Fuzz is the story of an overachieving London policeman named Nicolas Angel (Simon Pegg) who gets reassigned to the small and relatively crime-free town of Sandford. While he tries his best to remain useful in policemen terms, the town is just too perfect and the best cases he gets involve a large group of underage drinkers and a crazy old man with a stash of weapons including a sea mine. His well-meaning partner Danny Butterman (Nick Frost) is excited about what he might learn from his out-of-town colleague, although tries to remind him of the sad fact that Sandford just isn't as crime-ridden as London is.

At least, that's what it seems until Angel begins to realize that as much as crime is extremely low, the local accident rate is very high and this sets him on the trail of a larger conspiracy that shows that this little town is not what it seems.

Hot Fuzz is another product of the mind of Edgar Wright, the same genius behind the cult classic Shaun of the Dead (which sadly I have also yet to see - BAD rOckY!) and features much of the same wit and humor within a macabre setting that he's become somewhat known for. While there were no flesh-eating zombies this time around, there were gun-toting old folks, and you know how that's guaranteed to make you laugh. Sequences like that always make me think back to the old Avengers TV series for some reason.

At the core of this movie is the concept of the Bristish Copper, a somewhat stereotype explored by various TV shows and books like how Terry Pratchett characterizes the Anhk Morpork City Watch in his Discworld novels. Angel is Wright's attempt at bringing to life the true "fuzz" in his own right and he manages this pretty well. Credit definitely has to go to Simon Pegg for his performance in this movie.

If you haven't managed to watch this movie yet (as I had not less than 24 hours ago), the you definitely need to make the time. Check your TV schedules! Run out to by the DVD! Steam it online or download it for multiple viewings! Anything, just go see it!