Hot Fuzz

**/****     HOT FUZZ (R)

The 2004 independent picture Shaun of the Dead was a critical success both in the United Kingdom and the United States, and has developed a cult-like following among fans. The zombie-themed romantic comedy was written by Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright, who had previously found success together with their hit British television show Spaced. The duo elected to join forces once again in 2007, with the creation of the satirical action flick Hot Fuzz.

Sergeant Nicholas Angel (Pegg) is the most talented police officer with London’s Metropolitan Police Service, but his tireless dedication to his job leads to some jealousy felt by his superiors, who decide to transfer Angel to the small village of Sandford. Upon arrival, Angel has trouble adjusting to what appears to be an easy going and crime free small-town lifestyle in Sandford, where his partner Danny Butterman (Nick Frost) spends the majority of his time watching cheesy action movies and drinking at the local pub.

Several mysterious deaths soon begin occuring around the village, which elicits the attention of Angel, but the townspeople of Sandford and the rest of his police force pals claim all of the deaths were accidents and not murders. But Angel refuses to drop his investigation into the various deaths, and quickly begins to unravel the motives and the identities of those behind the outrageous, non-accidental killings.

Less of a parody and more of a homage to the Lethal Weapon-style buddy cop movies, Hot Fuzz is entertaining for the most part, but also slightly disappointing in the fact that it misses its target nearly as often as it hits it. The movie’s fun action sequences in its final act are a joy to sit through, as they are so ridiculously over-the-top and are executed in a wonderful mocking fashion, but the movie’s tremendously slow build, its lacking of any interesting character development and its failure to deliver clever pieces of dialogue make arriving to the climax a bit hard to handle.

And while the movie is supposed to be an exaggerated send up to the already amplified and overstated action flicks of the likes of Michael Bay, Jerry Bruckheimer and Joel Silver, Hot Fuzz ends up making the crucial and unforgiveable mistake of starting to feel exactly like the movies it sets out to lampoon by showcasing easy to design cartoon characters, fruitless one-liners and too many moments were the gags cease to exist and a misplaced seriousness starts to kick in.

That’s not to say the movie doesn’t succeed at certain times, as director Wright and stars Pegg and Frost obviously have a great working relationship and chemistry formed with each other that comes across on-screen. Their dead-pan delivery and well-executed filmmaking style makes this parody seem like a much smarter and clever version of The Naked Gun, as opposed to the embarrasing slapstick nature of disposable comedies like Epic Movie, Scary Movie or Not Another Teen Move.

A fun film that pays more respect to the bad-action film genre than it does spoofing it, Hot Fuzz is a slightly uneven picture that begins to run out of steam before the true fun in the film begins.