Hot Fuzz (2007)

After you see "Shaun of the Dead" (2004), a fabulous product of English comedy/action/movie homage, with such an insightful knowledge of the genre, incredible humorous tone (without resorting to cheap or forced laughs, although without major laughing moments), and kick-ass action like the best, you wouldn't think that the team made by director Edgar Wright, writers Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg, and actors Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, could do something better. Well, they did. It's called "Hot Fuzz"! "Shaun of the Dead" blended your average English comedy situation and stereotyped characters with the best spoof of a zombie film ever made. "Hot Fuzz" nods at the blockbuster action and serial killer genre, in an English countryside setting. Simon Pegg is once again the lead character, as the perfect cop who cleans the streets of London like no other. Jealousy from colleagues and superiors (some cameos by Bill Nighy, Martin Freeman), make him be transfered to a small English town, where supposedly nothing happens, and he, the perfect cop, is bound to sort out stupid things like a missing goose, with new partner Nick Frost, who gives him a friendship he never had and a new taste for blockbuster movies. All seems quite enough until a serial killers starts to strike. Or at least so Pegg thinks, unlike all other police officers and Police Chief Jim Broadbent, who discard it as accidents. As events unfold and deaths multiply, suspicion falls on always suave Timothy Dalton. In an MTV-style of editing, and a lot of amusing situations and clever scenes that experts of this genre of films will immediately identify, a suposed climax is achieved 30 minutes before the film ends, and the truth is unveiled. Although interesting and flowing with irony, the movie has more pace due to its editing than by its story. But in the last half hour, all hell breaks loose, as Pegg and Frost take matters on their own hands, and like Smith and Lawrence in "Bad Boys", just kick the shit of everybody in their paths, with lots of gunfights, explosions and great lines, in once again a magnificent humorous homage to this particular genre. Fully aware of themselves, this elevates the movie to a new level, a universe of its own, where the "normal" is transformed to a stereotyped illusion that we are used to see because of the media, and that becomes the reality that the characters themselves, despite living it, constantly mock by what they choose to do. This movie may not be for all hearts, because its humor is too clever and, shall I say, too British. Don't expect to laugh you head off. Expect to smile a lot, to enjoy every scene, and to nod favorably at the little moments that make it worthwhile. I much prefer this to be so, because the whole movie exists at a level of fun that never stalls, unlike an american comedy which exists at a low status, but has peaks of laughter that burst life into it. This way the movie is much more coherent. This is the British way, and as comedy films of the new generation, "Shaun of the Dead" and "Hot Fuzz" are unmissable, although they are, as someone said quite rightly, no Monty-Python. This will not give any sort of moral, nor any sort of higher emotion, so its not a movie to last the ages. It's just to seat back, and yeah.. enjoy!