Hot Fuzz
We went to an advance screening of Hot Fuzz today. Simon Pegg plays a super-cop transferred to the safest village in England by the Met for embarrassing his colleagues by being too damn good at fighting crime. Put simply the plot revolves around his seeing murder where the rest of Sandford Constabulary sees tragic accidents. Populating the village is an impressive Brit cast including Edward Woodwood, Jim Broadbent and Timothy Dalton who plays the smarmy Somerfield manager to perfection.
I’m sure everyone will say this so I’ll get it out of the way - it’s not as good as Shaun of the Dead (which was pure genius). That said it definitely has its moments. Elements of Miss Marple, Midsomer Murders, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, and even the The Wicker Man are obvious along with little homages to a host of other movies and TV shows. The very dark comedy comes in thick and fast and there are some quite shocking moments of extreme gore where your mouth drops open incredulously and you stare wide eyed at the screen feeling guilty for finding it amusing.
The problem is that while the movie consists of a series of good ideas that all work as individual scenes, the scenes don’t quite hang together as a film. In the end though I don’t think this really matters as it’s a highly entertaining way to spend two hours. I’d quite happily watch it again.