Hot Fuzz
In “Shaun of the Dead,” writer-director Edgar Wright and his co-writer and leading man, Simon Pegg, crafted an uproarious sendup of zombie movies that still honored the conventions of the genre. It was equal parts parody and homage — overtly hilarious and stealthily scary. Wright and Pegg repeat the formula with “Hot Fuzz,” this time taking on action movies, in particular the buddy-cop subgenre. But this time I think the affection holds them back. Like many straight action movies, “Hot Fuzz” is loud, one-note and ultimately wearying. Wright does his best Michael Bay impersonation, overdirecting meaningless transitional montages and circling his camera around his armed, sunglassed and stylishly injured heroes. But aping Bay’s style doesn’t illuminate much — except, perhaps, that Bay is so overwrought that he parodies himself. I’m not so sure that’s a revelation. Often Wright seems to think we’ll be amused just by the style of “Hot Fuzz” rather than the content. At times I wished I was watching one of its sources of inspiration, like “Point Break,” from the gonzo action craftswoman Kathryn Bigelow (who’s way more talented than Bay).
Pegg plays Nicholas Angel, a straight-laced and intimidatingly efficient London cop whose superiors (Bill Nighy, Steve Coogan and Martin Freeman in cameos) shuffle him off to the quaint village of Sandford because his gaudy arrest statistics embarrass the rest of the force (or “service,” as Angel would say — there’s an amusing running gag about appropriate police jargon). In Sandford, he’s partnered with rotund bumbler Danny Butterman (Nick Frost), the son of the village’s chief inspector (Jim Broadbent). A series of horrific deaths, poorly staged to look like accidents, persuades Angel that everything is not as it seems in the quiet little town, and he and Danny are swept up into the “proper action” Danny craves — gunfights, car chases and explosions.
Frost’s bumptious Danny is the best thing about “Hot Fuzz” — oversized, lovable and defiantly uncool. Frost knows how to use his girth to great visual advantage, and his run is somehow lumbering and lilting at the same time. He’s a human pogo stick. Frost’s doughy face and crooked mouth register pleasure, anguish and unabashed macho envy with a welcome broadness. “Hot Fuzz” makes overt the homoeroticism inherent in so many buddy-cop movies, and Frost is unafraid to sell it. Pegg, by contrast, commits to playing the stoic alpha male that action convention requires; his droll loser-hero in “Shaun of the Dead” was far more memorable. Amid the overstuffed supporting cast, the great Paddy Considine stands out as one of a pair of apathetic, mustachioed detectives. But I wonder if Wright might have made a leaner, funnier movie if he’d said “no” to a few of the seemingly dozens of luminaries who were keen to work with him after “Shaun.” “Hot Fuzz” gains nothing from having Nighy, Coogan and Freeman in the same scene, nor from the cleverly disguised cameos by Cate Blanchett and Peter Jackson. Nor does it distinguish itself when the bullets start cascading. There’s some invention to the mayhem, but it runs out long before the de riguer bombastic climax.