ALLAN HUNTER at the Movies

HOW DO you follow a film like ‘Shaun Of The Dead’? The 2004 zombie comedy was one of the most inventive and enjoyable British films in recent memory.

Now director Edgar Wright and co-stars Simon Pegg and Nick Frost have reunited on ‘Hot Fuzz’, another affectionate spoof that mixes the buddy movie cliches of ‘Bad Boys’ with the great British eccentricity of ‘Midsomer Murders’.

The result is smart, funny and daftly enjoyable, even if it doesn’t quite know when enough is enough. Pegg is Nicholas Angel, a police constable with a tireless devotion to duty and the letter of the law.

His arrest record is so impressive that his London superiors regard him as an over-achieving embarrassment, and so they dispatch him to the quiet country village of Sandford.

Nothing ever happens in Sandford, and easygoing Inspector Butterman (Jim Broadbent) likes to take a softly softly approach to law enforcement.

His son Danny (Nick Frost) becomes Nicholas’s new best friend and comrade in arms when the village is suddenly home to a spate of grisly murders.

Starring a who’s who of British comedy (Steve Coogan, Stephen Merchant, Martin Freeman, etc), ‘Hot Fuzz’ offers a canny mixture of verbal wit and visual humour that remains entertaining throughout its two hour running-time.

It also boasts a great cast of British character actors, from Edward Woodward to Billie Whitelaw and a special, heavily disguised cameo from an Oscar-winning star. It is a thoroughly entertaining and worthy follow-up to ‘Shaun Of The Dead’ until an action-packed, guns blazing finale that grows a little tiresome. Flawed, but definitely funny.

Director: Edgar Wright
Stars: Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Jim Broadbent, Timothy Dalton, Paddy
Considine, Edward Woodward, Bill Nighy
Screenwriter: Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg
Certificate: 15
Running time: 120 mins
Country: UK
Year: 2007

© Allan Hunter, 2007