Crime can be very, very funny.

Hubs and I watched a British comedy called Hot Fuzz this week, and we laughed our patooties off! It's by the same guys who made Shaun of the Dead (which meant something to hubs, though not to me), starring Simon Pegg (who also co-wrote the script).

The movie tells the story of police officer Nicholas Angel, a top cop in London. Because he's received so many commendations and made so many arrests (400% more than any other officer in London), he's making his co-workers (and supervisors) look bad. To get rid of him, management has him transferred to the sleepy little village of Sandford. There, he gets stuck with an inexperienced partner (who happens to be the son of the police inspector) and finds difficulty making the transition from lean, mean, policing machine to do-nothing keeper of a town where very little crime is ever committed.

But then, odd things begin to happen. A philandering couple is found beheaded on a local highway. A man is blown up after a gas leak in his house. A reporter form the town's newspaper is killed by a piece of falling stone from an old church roof. Local authorities insist that all of these deaths are just accidents, but Nicholas begins to think there's more to it than that.

For the rest of the movie, Nicholas and his bumbling partner try to unearth the thread that links all the murders. The truth behind the rash of deaths is comic gold.

This movie is a hilarious send-up of the cop genre, but it's also a decent action flick in its own right. Pegg is marvelous as the orderly, buttoned-up Nicholas, and Nick Frost holds down his side of the script as the naive Danny Butterman (Nick's partner). There were knee-slapping lines and situations throughout, with character-driven comedy playing just as large a role as all the funny plot-driven stuff.

You will recognize several other cast members as well: Bill Nighy as the Met Chief Inspector, Jim Broadbent as Inspector Frank Butterman, Timothy Dalton as Simon Skinner, even a tiny role by Cate Blanchett, who plays Nicholas' former girlfriend.

If you're in need of a laugh, I highly recommend this movie! We loved it!

Comments

Stacey said…
Run, don't walk, to Blockbuster and rent Shaun of the Dead immediately.

Or wait a few weeks till it starts playing non-stop on Comedy Central.