Hot Fuzz

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Rating 2¼


Directed Edgar Wright

Written by Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright

Starring Simon Pegg (Sgt Nicholas Angel), Nick Frost (PC Danny Butterman), Jim Broadbent (Inspector Frank Butterman), Timothy Dalton (Simon Skinner), Edward Woodward (Tom Weaver), Bill Bailey (Sgt Turner), Paddy Considine (DS Andy Wainwright), Rafe Spall (DC Andy Cartwright), Kevin Eldon (Sgt Tony Fisher), Karl Johnson (PC Bob Walker), Olivia Colman (PC Doris Thatcher), Billie Whitelaw (Joyce Cooper), Eric Mason (Bernard Cooper), Stuart Wilson (Dr Robin Hatcher), Paul Freeman (Rev Philip Shooter), Anne Reid (Leslie Tiller), Alice Lowe (Tina), Bill Nighy (Chief Inspector), Martin Freeman (Sergeant) and uncredited appearances by Steve Coogan and Cate Blanchett


PC Nicholas Angel is the textbook police officer, so much so that he puts his colleagues in the Metropolitan Police Service to shame, so they rid themselves of him with a promotion to Sergeant and a transfer to Sandford, a crime-free village in Gloucestershire. Angel is greeted with suspicion by his new colleagues and with derision when he suggests that a series of seemingly accidental deaths were, in fact, murders, but he finds a friend and ally in the PC Danny Butterman, the son of the local police inspector.

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‘Hot Fuzz’ was the follow-up to the much-loved zombie homage ‘Shaun of the Dead’, and like that film was directed by Edgar Wright from a screenplay co-written with Simon Pegg, and starring Pegg alongside Nick Frost and a wealth of British acting talent. Wright, Pegg and Frost had previously worked together on the BBC television series ‘Spaced’ (which was co-written by Pegg and the actress Jessica Hynes, nee Stevenson) and are now working on a sci-fi film called ‘The World’s End’.

For the first hour of ‘Hot Fuzz’, which apparently has its roots in ‘Dead Right’, an amateur film made by Edgar Wright in 1993, it plays like a kind of mixture of ‘Midsomer Murders’, ‘The League of Gentlemen’ and ‘The Wicker Man’. The second hour is an over-cooked homage / parody of action films like ‘Bad Boys II’ and ‘Point Break’, both of which are name-checked extensively.

‘Hot Fuzz’ is very typical of Simon Pegg’s style of comedy and homage to a variety of niche genres. It contains many clever touches and some genuine laugh-out-loud moments, but somehow it just isn’t quite as funny as it should be and I did start to get very bored during the interminable action sequences in the second half. More noticeable yet, it isn’t as warm-hearted as the wonderful ‘Shaun of the Dead’, which admittedly was a very hard act to follow.

I have to say that I found the under-appreciated mid-1990s Rowan Atkinson television sitcom ‘The Thin Blue Line’ funnier, but that is not to say that ‘Hot Fuzz’ is not worth watching.

The film had a production budget of £8 million (a little under $16 million) and grossed over $80.5 million at the box office worldwide. It has a very impressive 90% fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes from 189 reviews.

Review posted 3 February 2010


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