If you visit Sandford, you'd better be packin'

I recently rediscovered the magic that is the library—free rental on books, music, and CDs. Take that Blockbuster. Like most people, I’d seen the trailers for Hot Fuzz and thought, “Oh man, that looks funny.” After all, it was made by the same guys who did Shaun of the Dead so why not? My sister warned me it was otherwise, but I still wanted to see it. I’m glad she warned me otherwise I would have been quite annoyed.

Nick Angel (Simon Pegg) is a damn fine cop. Probably the best cop London has ever seen—which means he makes all the other cops look like slackers and idiots. Tired of being shown up, Nick’s superiors reassign him to Sandford, a cozy little town in Gloucestershire that’s nearly perfect. Not exactly Nick’s kind of place. With all his cop training, it’s almost as though he’s looking for something to be wrong with Sandford. The weird part? There is. People start dropping off like flies. But no one else seems to see it—or want to accept it for that matter, and Nick comes off as paranoid and a bit crazy. The only one who seems to believe him is his new partner, Danny (Nick Frost). Nick and Danny need to figure out what’s wrong in Sandford and they need to do it fast because more people are dying—and Nick is next on the list.

A nutshell summary, to be sure. This movie is weird in a way I didn’t expect, but it managed to work out...somehow. Everything is exaggerated, of course, from Nick’s awesome cop-skills to the crazed townspeople at the end, complete with massive gunfights. The thing is that it seemed to take forever to get this movie going anywhere. It’s a minute over two hours and I think that could have easily been cut down. There are way too many scenes zooming in on what Nick’s doing (similar to a bit of the style in Shaun of the Dead—either those guys like that style or they did it numerous times on purpose, which may very well be the case) that probably could have gone out the window.

I’m glad I was warned that this movie wasn’t as funny as the previews, because it wasn’t. Many went in thinking this was going to be just as funny as Shaun of the Dead when it wasn’t by far. There were maybe only a handful of moments where I laughed aloud and only a handful more where I smirked. The movie was surprisingly more serious than I ever would have expected, which in a way was kind of cool because Simon Pegg is a really good serious actor. He’s awesome at being ticked and freaked out, and comes off as the kind of guy who really can kick major ass, and Nick Frost isn’t too shabby either as the geeky cop turned real fighter. However this movie ended up, the acting was top notch. You get Jim Broadbent as the police chief, unsuspecting and innocent, and Timothy Dalton as the truly creepy Mr. Skinner.

While killing people tends to be a messy business, there were times when I felt the gore was just a tad bit excessive for this movie, though it was likely all done on purpose. This movie was like several different styles rolled into one, which added to the semi-weirdness of it. There’s the normal whodunit, creepy perfect town gone bad, gory murder movie, and an homage to ridiculous cop action movies all put together on the screen and manages to work. I get the feeling that had anyone else attempted something like this, it would have come off as stupid.

Having said all that, the gist is that it’s a good movie. Odd, but good. The crazed cop gun-fighting action at the end seemed to be overdone not only on purpose, but as though to help make up for all the time spent building up to the action. It didn’t really work in that way, but oh well. It had its fun moments and the whole movie was put together well, and if you didn’t laugh enough during the movie, you can always giggle at the outtakes.

NT


Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age