Movie Reviews - new films reviewed

Nicholas Angel (Simon Pegg) is London’s top cop – his arrest rate is 400% higher than average, he was wounded three times on duty, is an expert in unarmed combat and has collected numerous awards. But Angel’s overachievement makes his colleagues look bad in comparison, so he is promoted away from London to the quiet village of Sandford. Sandford has been “Village of the Year” already several times, has the lowest crime-rate in the UK, and the last murder dates 20 years back.
Angel’s new partner is Danny Butterman (Nick Frost), son of local Chief Inspector Frank Butterman (Jim Broadbent) who takes care of Sandford’s reputation together with Sandford’s Neighbourhood Watch Alliance (NWA).
Danny is a fan of action movies and totally in awe of the supercop from the big city of London. Maybe he can finally experience the gunfights, explosions and chases he knows only from his action movies with Angel, because the Sandford Police’s top jobs seem to be catching a farmer’s escaped swan or watching over the village’s church festival.
Nicholas’ zero-tolerance policy – he makes his first arrests, including his partner-to-be Danny, already in the night of his arrival – isn’t met well with his new colleagues. They tell Angel to relax a bit – Sandford ain’t London where crime lurks behind every corner, and if he doesn’t take it more easy, he might have a break-down just like his predecessor.
After a series of grisly and bizarre “accidents” Angel is convinced a murderer is loose in Sandford, but he stands alone after he fails to prove his top suspect Simon Skinner (Timothy Dalton) is the killer.
But officer Nicholas Angel is not a man who gives up easily – and it’s time for a new sheriff in town!

* * *
Nicholas Angel: “Haven’t you ever wondered why the crime rate is so low? But the accident rate is so high?”
* * *
Danny Butterman: “Have you ever fired two guns whilst jumping through the air?”
Nicholas Angel: “No.”
* * *

From the team of Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz is a very British take on the buddy-cop-action movie genre. It’s not a spoof, as director Edgar Wright points out, even if it has parodistic elements, but more of a homage to action and cop movies, with references to films like The Matrix, Straw Dogs, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, Leon – The Professional, and especially Point Break and Bad Boys II.
With a budget of about $ 16 million, it’s not as polished as your average Hollywood blockbuster, but it makes up with British humor and fun characters. Simon Pegg is hilarious as overambitious police officer with no private life and a running style that looks faster than it is (and is reminiscent of Robert Patrick’s T-1000 in Terminator 2 – Judgment Day) who slowly softens up with the help of Nick Frost’s Danny Butterman. And the slow build-up is rewarded with an action-packed finale that starts with Angel riding into town on a white horse with weapons … lots of weapons.
Hint: When you want to find out who did it before Angel, think about Scream!

HOT FUZZ movie trailer

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 20th, 2007 at 4:43 pm and is filed under 4-star-movies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.