Girls of Geek Movie Review: Hot Fuzz

Written by:  John Edward Betancourt 

The buddy cop dynamic that was once so prevalent in film has all but disappeared from the silver screen.  No longer do we enjoy the wacky adventures of Murtaugh and Riggs, those kind of adventures have moved on from the two hour window to find themselves instead on television.  

Yet while the golden age of buddy cop films has ended, I think it is safe to say that it went out with a bang in 2007, when Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost put together the second entry in the Three Flavors Cornetto Trilogy with the incredibly funny...Hot Fuzz.

Nicholas Angel is London's top cop.  In fact, there is no police officer that can keep pace with him and well...they're tired of him making them look bad.  So in an effort to level the playing field, Nicholas is sent to the peaceful town of Sandford, a village renowned for its incredibly low crime rate.  But not everything in Sandford is what is seems and it will be up to Nicholas and his new partner Danny to unravel the mystery.

I'd be lying if i was to say that I wasn't taken completely off guard by the fact that the follow up to Shaun of the Dead would be a buddy cop flick.  After all, the men behind Shaun had struck gold and the zombie genre was theirs for the taking.  But instead this sudden change of direction came about and once the surprise wore off, I happily went along with it, not once questioning it in my mind.  The reason for that was simple, the last film was perfection, so a sequel would surely be just all right. 

I was wrong.  They struck gold again and this wild send up the buddy cop genre is equally perfection.  Once more the laughs are there, once more Simon Pegg and Nick Frost lose themselves in their respective roles and holy cow, they even upped their game by adding Timothy Dalton to the cast.  

Another fine feature to this picture is the fact that it actually keeps you guessing when it comes to the Mystery of Sandford and that actually elevates it above other pictures in the genre.  Often times, and Lethal Weapon is a great example of this, the villain is revealed early on and so is their nefarious motive.  But the baddie in this flick I never saw coming and the reason for the crime was equally as surprising.   

But what I love most about the first two films in the Cornetto Trilogy, is the fact that Pegg, Wright and Frost pour themselves into every facet of the story and its execution.  I cannot stress enough how impressed I am with the passion that goes into their films and how easy it is to lose one's self in these epic stories and watching Hot Fuzz again only makes the wait nearly unbearable to see the final entry in the series...The World's End.  

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