Hot Fuzz In Los Angeles

About two weeks ago, I was lucky enough to get tickets to a special triple feature at the Aero in Los Angeles. The headlining feature was Edgar Wright's "Hot Fuzz", followed by "Point Break" and "Hard Boiled". Now, if you are reading this and you haven't seen "Shaun of the Dead" yet, I suggest you go watch it right now. Wright, Simon Pegg, and Nick Frost created an instant classic with SotD. They managed to make a spot-on homage to classic Romero zombie flicks that was also a very accessible comedy for regular moviegoer. That was probably one of the most impressive things I remember about SotD. I am not a huge zombie movie fan, but I absolutely loved the movie.

Now, the trio's second effort "Hot Fuzz" tackles a genre that I am very familiar with...the American buddy cop movie. I was a little curious what kind of film this was actually going to be. Was it going to be a total spoof of the genre? A parody? Or a its own self-sufficient movie? It turns out its all 3. I am not even sure how to classify the movie besides calling it a comedy. Obviously, Wright and Co. love the classics e.g. Lethal Weapon, Die Hard, etc but they didn't do the easy thing and just spoof those movies like the underrated "National Lampoons: Loaded Weapon 1".

Simon Pegg plays "Nicolas Angel", a London supercop, who is sent to the countryside because he is making everyone else look bad. He befriends another guy on the force, "Danny Butterman (Frost)" and the hijinx ensue. The plot in itself takes such a ludicrous turn near the climax that I don't want to spoil any of it for you. The movie itself starts out as a slow burn, but covers a lot of the classic story beats from cop movies. There is even some homo-erotic tension between Angel and Butterman that is played up for some good comic effect. You might get a little anxious about an hour in because the action quotient is basically non-existent, but its all building up to one of the wildest finales in movie history. After you see the last 20 minutes, it just makes you love everything about the movie a million times more.

"Hot Fuzz" singles out "Point Break" and "Bad Boys II" most obviously as examples of cliche cop work in movies. I think being familiar with both films before watching Fuzz will make you appreciate it infinitely more. Frankly, I can probably guarantee fans of the action classics from the 80s and 90s will instantly fall in love with this film. But like "Shaun of the Dead", "Hot Fuzz" doesn't require any outside film knowledge. It is just a well made film that will have you laughing all the way through the end even if you don't know how "radical a dude" Johnny Utah maybe.

"Hot Fuzz" opens TOMORROW, April 20th!

P.S. After the screening of "Hot Fuzz", we were treated to a Q&A with a panel that included Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg, Edgar Frost, and Sir Timothy Dalton (who is freaking brilliant in this film as well). We found out some interesting tidbits about how they managed to get such a cavalcade of British TV and Movie stars into the film. We also find out that "Dirty Harry" is probably Edgar Wright's fave cop film, and everyone in the panel thought "Bad Boys II"'s second ending that had them rampaging through Cuba was as ridiculous and stupid as I thought it was.