Hot Fuzz

Well, Hot Fuzz is here at last and this reviewer for one can reveal that it was easily worth the wait! The premise is simple enough, that top cop Nicholas Angel (Simon Pegg) is relocated from London to the sleepy village of Sandford because his high arrest rates have been making the rest of The Met look bad. However, there is more to idyllic Sandford than meets the eye, and soon Angel, along with bumbling local cop PC Danny Butterman (Nick Frost) are taking on some powerful dark forces that have had a tidy-hedgerow domination over the village for quite some time.

The story certainly is less original than Shaun of the Dead, but then just try and imagine a story more original than a zom-rom-com! And I found that the story takes a while longer to get underway and justify itself than its zombie predecessor, but I'm sticking my neck out and saying that although it will maybe never match the sheer charm of Shaun, Hot Fuzz has done what I thought was impossible, and beat it, albeit maybe only in a photo-finish.

Once Fuzz gets underway and the bond between Angel and Butterman is cemented, then it does all flows freely, and from the return of Angel to the village after an initial ousting, it becomes one fantastic roller-coaster of ludicrous violence and hilarious imagery, providing laughs greatly in excess of Shaun. The film then stamps out its own personality and stands alone, deservedly so. Those involved should prepare themselves for a lot of money being thrown at them. Hopefully, they will be able to handle it. In the week that the US-partners of Wallace & Gromit dumped the plasticine heroes, I can't help but think that Hot Fuzz is very much a British success, relying on the idiosyncrasies of self-deprecating British humour. Having said that, Shaun did rather well over there, so who can say?

A small criticism is the time it takes for the film to end, with a couple of extra scenes, which to me just felt like Pegg and Wright not wanting to stop playing with their toys before it's time for tea, but as the film doesn't feel overlong anyway (we are not talking Return of the King end-sequence here) and the extras are fine and funny, it just makes it less rounded. Maybe that's a good thing too, I'll let you decide...