Homage to "Hot Fuzz"

The first time I saw this movie was in Singapore in 2008. At that time, I was bored and went to a nearby DVD shop and bought this one, almost randomly. Boy, until today, that is still my best random-purchase.

This is the movie from the same team that created "Shaun of the Dead." Honestly, "Shaun of the Dead" didn't impress me at all. It was not bad, but for me it is just a forgettable parody. Maybe that is due to my dislike to anything with zombies, but nevertheless, I don't pay any attention to that team, and I only notice the sentence "from the team that brought you Shaun of the Dead" in "Hot Fuzz" DVD cover, once I try to play the DVD.

This movie is good. Really good. Forget that, this is the BEST buddy-cop movie I have ever watched. Yup, it is better than any Lethal Weapon, Rush Hour, or ANY other buddy-cop film listed in this wikipedia site. I watched this movie repeatedly, and it never gets old either! So, what makes it so good? Let's see ...

The Story 

A London policeman ... sorry, police officer (Since being a man doesn't have anything to do with being a police) named Nicholas Angel is good. He is smart, resourceful, agile, and every inch tough as nails. Oh yeah, he is also a workaholic. In essence: he is so good that he embarrassed every other cops including his superiors. So, they "promoted" him and move him to an Utopian small village named "Sandford," a village that won "Village of the year" countless times. Of course in Sandford he experienced "Fish out of water" situations. The idyllic situation of that village relaxed everyone there, and everyone knows everyone in Sandford, etc. Nicholas also has another problem in adaptation. His new partner is Danny Butterman, Sandford's inspector's son, a cop who watched too many cop movies, especially "Point Break" and "Bad Boys II," and repeatedly asked Angel whether a city cop experienced all of those "actions and shits" he saw from the movies! The situation seems too good to be true. Angel know something is not right. So many fatal accidents happened in Sandford, and everyone overlooked everything. Together with Danny, he was determined to find what really happened. The truth is ... just say that I am pretty sure, even Sherlock Holmes, L, or any super detective wouldn't get it correctly.

The concept of this story is very basic, but also funny at the same time. But excellent concept itself is useless if they screwed up the execution. Fortunately, the execution is perfect. Really. There is no useless or redundant scene in this movie. Almost every line early in the movie is a foreshadowing for the climax and the big picture. Everything is a buildup for a climax that totally awed me. That's what makes me enjoy all the re-watch, I laugh everytime I heard those foreshadowing. I also really loved how the movie, using Danny, really smacked the audience's & Nicholas' face with every single cliche in this genre ... and glorify those cliches in the climax. Seriously, if you want to know how to use action movie to awe the audience, watch the climax of this movie.

The Cast and Characters 

Every cast here played flawlessly. From Simon Pegg who played the no non-sense Nicholas Angel, to Nick Frost who played the naive-action cop wannabe Danny Butterman, to Timothy Dalton who played the shrewd Simon Skinner, everyone got their character correctly. You can look into their eyes, their body languange, and feel the emotion the movie want to convey to the audiences. The characters themselves is not really diverse. Other Sandford Polices for example, is not really different from each other. So does Neighbourhood Watch Association's members. You can say this is the only weak-point of the movie BUT, I don't think that more diverse and deeper characters can significantly improve anything.

Miscellaneous 

There are so many other details that make me love this movie. As an example, I love how the movie, explain some basics in police work, ripping all the bullshit in other cop movies. 

I love how they proved that a small notebook is "the most important tool for a cop" and more generally how paperwork is part of the job. Other cop movies thought that paperwork is boring, so they never showed it. This movie is so confident that it even make its paperwork scene to be so powerful.

I am ecstatic when they don't have any cutesy characters, you know, something like a 5 year old girl who hold a teddy bear with a pink dress and a big ribbon on top of her head? The one that either stare you with her "Disney eyes" or laugh or ... cry and scream whenever they got near the bad guys? Nope, most kids in this films are underage drinkers, vandalizers, or only showed up for few seconds. Nothing cute here. Even the most physically weak but still important characters in this movie still manage to do SOMETHING, not only staring with their cute eyes and face, waiting to be rescued. That set the serious and badass tone of this movie effectively, without damaging its comedic tone. 

In the end, this is one of few movies that captivated me non-stop from the beginning until the end. That is a spectacular accomplishment. Even masterpieces like "The Godfather" or "Scent of a Woman" or "Heat" managed to bore me in some scenes. Not this one. 

Final verdict: 95 out of 100. Watch this one. Especially if you are an action and/or comedy buff like me.