REVIEWED - HOT FUZZ:Genteel Agatha Christie murder mystery meets big, dumb, loud Hollywood action movie in a funny if over-extended parody, writes Donald Clarke
WHETHER or not you like the work of Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg - and why on earth wouldn't you? - you must acknowledge that, in Shaun of the Dead and, now, Hot Fuzz, the team has created a singular species of comedy with its own attitudes and habits. The speedy, kinetic editing helps turn even the most mundane activities into tiny melodramas. Every fissure in every scene is plugged up with the boys' patented paste of pop-cultural reference and kindly good-humour.
Most notably, Wright and Pegg take a purposefully equivocal attitude to the material that inspires their elaborate lampoons. Recalling the puzzling rock band The Darkness, whose music somehow succeeded as both a parody and a celebration of heavy metal's excesses, Shaun of the Dead, though ostensibly one big gag, treated the conventions of the zombie film with sober respect throughout. Even George Romero was impressed.
Hot Fuzz takes a similar approach to the big, vulgar action epics of Jerry Bruckheimer and Joel Silver (Bad Boys II and Point Break are conspicuously referenced) and, though consistently funny, runs into a few problems along the way.
The picture begins with Pegg's overly efficient London copper being relocated to a small town in the country. Partnered with Nick Frost's decent but useless layabout, Pegg sets about acquainting himself with the gloriously eccentric locals. Timothy Dalton prowls about as a sinister supermarket entrepreneur. Paddy Considine turns up as a detective who thinks himself in The Sweeney. When the heroes encounter a series of grisly murders, they begin by exercising caution before calling for the helicopters and reaching for the bazookas.
The meditations on the quieter mortality of Midsomer Murders and Miss Marple are carried off very nicely indeed. Making good use of a cast packed with familiar faces, Wright - director and, with Pegg, co-writer - recreates the agreeable combination of unease and cosiness that has characterised so much British comedy since the time of The Ladykillers.
When the film-makers begin blowing up sleepy Sandford, the film does, however, begin rattling on its bearings somewhat. The zombie film was, at first at least, a low-budget entity, whereas Jerry Bruckheimer can't let off a popgun without spending a million dollars. Any re-enactment of mainstream action movies in such an inexpensive production will, thus, inevitably struggle to appear as anything other than pastiche.
Touching two hours, Hot Fuzz ultimately strains the viewer's tolerance for such elaborate parody. Mind you, considering how absurdly over-extended Bruckheimer's recent films have been, this might be a joke in itself. Clever boys.
