Hot Fuzz
dir. Edgar Wright
2007

"Do you want a cigarette? We can take our time and both die of cancer."
- Martin Riggs to Jumper, Lethal Weapon

"In death, there are no accidents, no coincidences, no mishaps and no escapes."
- Bludworth, Final Destination

"Oh, you British are sooooo superior, aren't you?"
- Otto, A Fish Called Wanda

Simon Pegg IS Sargeant Nicholas Angel of the London police.

He's driven. He's by-the-book. He's effective. He's tenacious.

In other words, there's no room for him in London.

When his coworkers come to resent Angel's workaholic passion, he is transfered to a small, evidently crimeless, country town.

But, as JRR Tolkein once famously observed, British provincials can be a hinky lot.

A series of increasingly unlikely accidents, an ominous hooded figure stalking the night, a smug, villanious supermarket magnate with a cheshire grin and a singularly bad (BAD) night at the theater all conspire to rob Angel of the peaceful, tranquil country life he didn't really want anyway.

As with Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz walks a fine line between parody, comedy and sincere action. Like Shaun, it is a fun and compelling movie in its own right, peppered (more explicitly this time) with many references to its forebears.

PC Danny Butterman (Angel's partner whose incompetence is matched only by his good-hearted enthusiasm) learned everything he knows about police work by watching Die Hard, Bad Boys and Lethal Weapon.

Angel resists any comparison between what he does and the way police work is depicted in those films. At a traffic stop that could otherwise have ended in a car chase and/or gunfight, Angel manages to psychologically subdue his suspect with just a notebook and pen. When he attempts to impress upon his partner the power of these police tools, Danny shows him a flip book cartoon he drew in his notebook of a man's head being blown off.

Of course, as we enter the third act and (Bad Boys style) "the shit gets real," Angel proves himself to be just as well suited for high action as he is for paperwork.

In addition to lampooning, emulating and paying respect (sometimes in a single shot) to American action fare, Hot Fuzz also borrows and builds on the tradition of British "fish out of water" small-town crime stories (ie Straw Dogs, The Wicker Man) as well as modern TV police procedurals like CSI, and Prime Suspect.

In the age of Zucker and Zucker, parody was broad. The Airplane movies are wall to wall puns, one-liners and sight gags. While that works, it can be emotionally alienating. The characters cannot be taken seriously, so the humor hits at a gut "3 stooges" level.

Hot Fuzz manages to sit quietly with its characters without breaking the mood.

Movies like Shaun of the Dead, Grindhouse, Snakes on a Plane and now Hot Fuzz are to Airplane what the sensitive 21st century well-adjusted guy is to Austin Powers: they're still only interested in one thing, but they're not afraid to show a little soft vulnerability to get it...if that's what you're into, baby.

Three and a half stars, Jason Angel says yippe kay yay, motherfucker!