Movie Review: Hot Fuzz

I can’t recommend this British comedy enough. I was comatose from the desperate muggings for laughs by Will Ferrell, Jim Carrey, et al. until Hot Fuzz's mixture of humor and shoot-em-up action jumpstarted my comedy-loving heart.

Nicholas Angel (Simon Pegg) is a by-the-books decorated officer in a London police department who is promoted to sergeant against his will and reassigned to the village of Sandford. The reason for the transfer? His arrest record is 400% higher than any other. He does his job so well that he makes the others look bad.

Sandford's force—which consists of a rotund simpleton, Danny Butterman (Nick Frost); his father, Inspector Frank Butterman (Jim Broadbent); two smarmy mustachios named the Andies; a tart; an elderly mumbler; a clueless man; and the head of the Neighborhood Watch Association (Edward Woodward)—is even more inept than Angel thought it would be. Nothing is taken seriously. Like how they all benefit from Danny's blunders because he has to buy them cake and ice cream every time he screws up.

Angel soon becomes bored chasing down Mr. P. I. Staker’s MIA swan and throwing pimply-faced teenagers out of the pub, but life takes an interesting turn when the villagers start meeting with suspicious accidents. There hasn’t been a murder in the village in 20 years, but the accidents are off the charts.

Nick Frost’s Danny Butterman is an ice-cream-slurping teddy bear, and his attempts to make his job as an officer live up to the Hollywood hype of his beloved collection of buddy cop movies is endearing.

As they cruise the beat, he irritates Angel with questions about his adventures patrolling the streets of London: “You ever fired two guns whilst jumping through the air?” “You ever fired one gun whilst jumping through the air?” “Ever fired your gun in the air and yelled 'aaaaah!'?" Angel’s answer is always an exasperated no, until he finds himself dodging fireballs, pulling out The Twins for a village showdown, and firing two guns whilst jumping through the air, bringing every buddy cop cliché to life.

That’s what I’m talkin’ about!