Netflix pick for 7/11/2016 – ‘Hot Fuzz’

As heard in episode 183 of Cinema Crespodiso.

From 2007, “Hot Fuzz“is Edgar Wright’s follow up to the hugely successful “Shaun of the Dead,” and with the stars of that movie (Simon Pegg and Nick Frost), they reteamed to make an ode to the action movie genre, going so far as to directly and repeatedly reference both “Point Break” and “Bad Boys II” in the movie itself. Hilarious and quite action packed, “Hot Fuzz” is great because it accomplished what it set out to do, which is to be an homage to these action movies while also sending them up, in an embrace of the ridiculousness which leads to some great action scenes and fun character development, all of it coming together to make a helluva entertaining flick.

Nick Angel (Pegg) is London’s top cop, and he’s so good he makes the rest of the department look bad, so everyone agrees it is in their best interest to transfer Angel to the countryside where he can’t be that great and can’t steal all their thunder and hog up all the limelight and other such metaphors. So he unhappily goes to Sandford, a tiny little town with practically non-existent crime. There he meets the chief’s son Danny (Frost), they get partnered up, and Danny instantly hero worships this big city cop while Nick just tries to do his job without going crazy from the small town mentality of all the people and the high levels of boredom associated with such a village. And then two of Sandford’s citizens turn up dead, it is declared an accident, and Nick Angel immediately suspects there is something else going on. Hence starts his investigation into why exactly Sandford has a very low murder rate but an extremely high “accident” rate, and he uncovers the most dangerous and deadly conspiracy of his career. Hilarity ensues.

This is a fun movie because everyone involved obviously has a real love for movies in general and action movies in particular and it comes through in every single frame of “Hot Fuzz.” This movie is just fun to watch and makes for a great way to spend a couple of hours. And if you really want to appreciate Edgar Wright’s propulsive style, check out this great video essay below from Every Frame a Painting about Edgar Wright’s style and how his sense of visual comedy blows everyone else away. And then when you are done with that, watch “Hot Fuzz” right here on the Netflix Instant and enjoy.