Britflix: Hot Fuzz

Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg, and Nick Frost were a comedic dream team, making some excellent films and TV shows. Their 2007 action-comedy Hot Fuzz is arguably their best work and loved by a generation of males.

Nicolas Angel (Pegg) is the best police officer in the Met. Angel’s so good that he makes the rest of the Met look bad. Angel’s superiors’ solution is to transfer the officer to Stanford, the safest village in the UK. However, the village isn’t as safe as it seems and Angel investigates a conspiracy related to the high accident rate.

Hot Fuzz was a big American style blockbuster set in a small English village. Or to put it another way: it was a Midsummer Murders episode if directed by Michael Bay. And what resulted was a film that was a hilarious labour of love.

Hot Fuzz is my favourite film in the Cornetto Trilogy and I will freely admit this is for bias reasons. The first reason is I’m an action junkie so it appeals to me on that level. The second is more personal: Hot Fuzz is set in the West Country, so it’s fun to see an action film in my home region. The film was shot in Wells, Danny Butterman (Frost) worn a Bristol Rovers top, and there were some region-specific jokes like gun ownership and David Bradley’s West Country accent.

When it comes to police based action films Britain is at a disadvantage. Britain has strict gun laws, only specialised police officers carry firearms, and the British police celebrate they use a community approach. The creators of Hot Fuzz realise this and go to great pains to overcome these issues in clever and humorous ways, such as showing Angel’s various skills and how the police acquire their firearms.

Hot Fuzz was a cinematic hybrid. It was a combination of action, comedy, police procedural, and horror. Wright was a master genre cinema and a big film fan so he was able to merge these story elements. When rewatching the film I noticed a lot of the foreshadowing such as Angel being told he needs to let someone into his life and Frank Butterman’s (Jim Broadbent) love for Westerns. The setting of Stanford was in the tradition of creepy British villages and Wright references this by stating a character in the film was an extra in Straw Dogs and casting Wicker Man star Edward Woodward in a supporting role. Wright proudly wore his influences (i.e. Point Break and Bad Boys II) on his sleeve.

Whilst Hot Fuzz was classified as an action film it doesn’t become a full-blown action film until the final act. The action scenes before that point were quick and Wright slowly ramps up the scale. The final action sequence starts with Angel riding into town like Clint Eastwood and it has everything you would want: gun battle, car chases, and fistfights, and the characters spoke in clichés. It was glorious. Wright does direct every scene like an action scene. He uses kinetic camera work and quick editing, making Hot Fuzz a highly energetic film.

Hot Fuzz was filled with comedic and acting talent and most of them don’t need any introduction. Timothy Dalton relished playing the villain of the piece and Rory McCann had a surprising early role as the dimwitted Lurch. Many of the actors in small roles like Olivia Colman, Rafe Spall, and Lucy Punch ended up having successful careers.

Nick Frost’s roles evolve throughout the Cornetto Trilogy. In Shaun of the Dead Frost’s character was a waster that holds Shaun back, Hot Fuzz he was well-meaning if a bit childlike, and in The World’s End he was the mature one. It allowed Pegg and Frost to explore different dynamics and show they weren’t playing the same characters over-and-over again. The key to Hot Fuzz was how the friendship between Angel and Danny developed and grew throughout the film. It was almost romantic. According to the IMDB trivia page Angel was meant to have a romantic interest and when she was cut most of her dialogue went to Danny.

Hot Fuzz is a hilarious film and it has stood the test of time. It’s a film that hits the ground running with the opening montage and barely lets up. The jokes involving the escaped swan were quintessentially English and whenever there are any incidents involving police officers and swans it leads to Hot Fuzz references. There were callbacks throughout Hot Fuzz like the fascist/hag. My favourite Easter Egg in the film was the Shaun of the Dead DVD in the bargain bin.

Hot Fuzz is deserving of its status as a British comedy classic. It was made by people on the top of their game as they lovingly parodied Hollywood action and British rural horror.