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‘Hot Fuzz’ a very graphic comedy
Mac Olsen
For Spotlight
Rated 14A by Canadian Home Video Rating
2 hours, 1 minute
$14.95 for single disc DVD (reviewed) and single disc HD DVD edition for $36.95 at www.columbiahousecanada.com
The line between hilarious comedy and graphic violence has become blurred in recent years, with the movie ‘Hot Fuzz’ being a prime example, which is done in extremely bad taste.
This movie is directed by Edgar Wright, who also co-wrote the script with Simon Pegg, and they created ‘Shaun of the Dead’ too. Pegg also stars as police constable Nicholas Angel and Nick Frost plays his partner, Danny Butterman.
Angel is a London cop who is transferred to the small town of Sandford against his wishes, but he is still motivated to serve and protect. However, his overly zealous attempts to apprehend criminals in Sandford do not win him the respect or support of the public or his peers at the detachment.
Butterman is a bumbling fool and a fan of Hollywood action movies like ‘Bad Boyz’ and ‘Point Break’. He tags along with Angel on patrol and always tries to do the right thing, but his antics only do more harm than good.
Eventually, Angel and Butterman investigate a series of grisly “accidents” in Sandford. Angel suspects the victims have been murdered, but the more he tries to convince his superiors, Butterman and the residents, the more oblivious they become to it. Angel gets premonition-like feelings when a murder has occurred or is about to occur, as encounters with a Grim Reaper-type figure dressed in black demonstrate.
Angel suspects Simon Skinner (played by Timothy Dalton) as the culprit. Skinner is enigmatic and Angel’s suspicions are legitimate, but he is one figure in a much larger picture Angel has to deal with. Suffice it to say, the action and the violence become pretty intense by the end of the movie.
Pegg and Frost have good chemistry together in their scenes, but it is Frost who really steals the movie. Frost parodies an action scene in ‘Point Break’ brilliantly, where Keanu Reeves’ character, Johnny Utah, frustratingly shoots his gun at the sky instead of a bank robber. Frost mimicked the frustration and rapid firing to perfection.
There are many good scenes like this in the movie, but there are also some very graphic scenes. One example is the scene where Angel is about to talk to someone about a supposed murder, but he meets an untimely demise when a piece of statue dropped from a church lands on his head. I won’t say anymore than this about the scene.
Graphic content is okay for a movie like ‘Saving Private Ryan’ or a slasher movie like ‘Halloween’, but it has no place in a comedy like this, for which Wright and Pegg can be harshly criticized. Granted, other dark comedies like ‘Scary Movie’ are guilty of graphic content too, but the Hollywood studios should cease making them.
Given the very graphic content, ‘Hot Fuzz’ deserves only three stars out of five.
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