Film Reviews

Hot Fuzz

• Rating:
• Director: Edgar Wright
• Starring: Nick Frost
• Details: UK / 116mins (15A).

London super cop Sgt. Nicholas Angel (Pegg) is very good at his job - so good, he's being shunted off to the sleepy village of Sandford because his high arrest rate is embarrassing the rest of the department. Angel takes some adjusting to snail's pace of village life where garden fetes and neighbourhood watch meetings are something to look forward to; but when grisly murders begin to crop up everywhere, Angel takes it upon himself to uncover the dark secrets of the quiet hamlet. Hot Fuzz is a one-joke movie that makes the drastic mistake of being too long, and director Wright could have shaved at least half an hour off the running time. At almost two hours, the jokes are stretched too thinly, running the risk of boring the audience as they wait for them to come around. Having said that, when the jokes are good, they're great, and the Michael Bay homage at the climax is top notch. In fact, there are a lot of fun nods and winks to other movies, from The Omen to Point Break to The Wicker Man. However, in between the gags, there's a lot to be desired, and Rafe Spall and Paddy Considine - as the two hard-boiled detectives - suffer most, as they are never given one good line throughout when there was plenty of material to play with. Those of you looking forward to gruesome, b-movie style death scenes witnessed in Shaun Of The Dead will be pleased to know that Pegg and Wright can't help themselves in dishing out the violent/hilarious demises. Bill Bailey, Steve Coogan, Kevin Eldon, Martin Freeman and Jim Broadbent all appear at some stage and Timothy Dalton looks like he's having a right old laugh as the local supermarket mogul Simon Skinner.

Review by Gavin Burke