The makers of the popular 2004 zombie flick “Shaun of the Dead” are back with another parody. Instead of zombie flicks Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg are paying tribute to the cheesiness of cop films like “Bad Boys” and the “Lethal Weapon” series in “Hot Fuzz.”
“Fuzz” is the story of officer Nicholas Angel (Simon Pegg) who can best be described as a workaholic who takes his job a little too serious.
Angel makes the rest of the London police force look like slackers. In an attempt to look better, the force has Angel transferred to the small country town of Sanford, where the most action he will see is a swan on the loose.
Angel then meets his foil the forever slacking ice cream eating cop Danny Butterman (played by “Shaun of the Dead’s” Nick Frost) and is forced to adjust to life at his pace. Sanford has no crime but a lot of accidents. Business is slow until Angel starts to notice a pattern to all of the accidents. What ensues is an all out action gorge fest that can only come from as they say, “The guys who have watched every action film ever made.”
“Fuzz” plays to all the action film parodies like the bad guy dropping not-so-subtle hints about their crimes, somewhat gay male bonding between the leads and actions scenes that not even Evil Knievel could survive.
The film even snatches scenes directly from films like “Fistful of Dollars,” where Clint rides into town on a horse with a toothpick in mouth ready to kick some butt. When you feel that the mocking could not be any more obvious Butterman forces Angel to watch all the films they are parodying including classics like “Bad Boy II.”
Although it may seems that Wright and Pegg are simply doing a comedic form of what Tarantino has just done with “Grindhouse,” “Fuzz” isn’t try to be the big box office action film but rather relishes in mocking them.
The dialogue is witty including the mocking of classic action lines such as putting someone in the freezer and saying to them, “Cool it.” Pegg and Frost deliver the same great comedic performances as in “Shaun of the Dead.”
Much like the “Scary Movie” series, if you haven’t seen the films being parodied then the jokes will not be as funny. Although most of the dialogue comedic punch comes from an understanding of the action genre, there is still a lot comedy that doesn’t involve a action junkie history, like the exchange between the inn runner and Angel where she calls him a fascist and he calls her a hag but only because it happens to be in a crossword she is working on.
Before “Fuzz” was a preview for a rocky boxing parody. We can only hope that Wright and Pegg don’t run out of films to mock, but the way Hollywood is going, they be working for the rest of their lives.
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