Hot Fuzz

Watching them one after the other wasn’t intentional on our part, but HOT FUZZ makes a nice companion piece to PAUL BLART, MALL COP. Both are about men thrust into situations that are out of their element, and both were co-written by their stars.

In HOT FUZZ, that’s Simon Pegg, who plays hard-ass London cop Nicholas Angel, who unexpectedly finds himself transferred to a quaint, quiet village in the English countryside. Angel has a hard time fitting in there and getting along with the eccentric villagers, none of whom are more eccentric than his fellow cops on the local police force. Up to that point, it’s a mild little comedy, more amusing than laugh-out-loud funny.

But then Angel begins to suspect that a series of “accidents” plaguing the village are actually the work of a serial killer, and from there the movie gets weirder, grosser, sillier, and considerably funnier. Angel applies his gung-ho tactics to the case, dragging his likable new partner along with him, and HOT FUZZ becomes a pretty wicked satire on buddy cop/action movies.

I suspect the grotesqueness that turns up from time to time in this movie might cause some viewers to dislike it, and some might find it just bizarre instead of funny. But I thoroughly enjoyed it and don’t hesitate to recommend it to those of you who have a taste for somewhat oddball comedy.