Hot Fuzz is one of the movies within the Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy directed by the creative Edgar Wright and starring the brilliant Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. The movie mainly takes place in the fictional village of Sandford, Gloucestershire, after the main character, Nicholas Angel, has been transferred from the London police branch to perform his police duties over there.
Back when the film was released and even after rewatching it during my teen years, I always thought that it was simply a British action comedy buddy-cop film. However, after watching the movie and analysing it, it would be discrediting the actual genius of the film itself as it is slightly more intricate than that.
THE MAIN DUO
Nicholas Angel is a stern and meticulous over-achieving police officer whose main focus in life primarily revolves around his job, even getting in the way of his marriage which got called off. He was so good at his job that he made everyone look bad, especially with his 400% arrest record over any officer in the police force, hence why his higher-ups transferred him. That said, there are many action film stereotypes consistently displayed throughout the film. For Nicholas Angel, in particular, he is stereotyped as the action hero who can do seemingly everything; he’s very intelligent, an expert marksman, a critical detective and is physically and mentally perfect for being the best at his job. On top of that, he gets his cool action hero moments despite having such a serious attitude. However, he struggles in his social life and his relationships. He could not maintain a relationship with his ex-lover and seemingly does not have any close friends whom he can open up to until he is further developed in the film when he finally becomes a true hero to the people of Sandford. On the other hand, Police Constable Danny Butterman — son of Inspector Frank Butterman — is introduced as the stereotypically lazy and irresponsible police officer who wants to be like the badass cops he sees in movies but is shown to be a childish drunkard who doesn’t do his job properly. Despite that, he grows into a lovable, reliable and funny second fiddle in helping Nicholas Angel solve the village’s crimes.
Literal references to the second instalment of the "Cornetto" Triology
CONCEPT
"Our thing was what if Tony Scott had to direct Heartbeat? So it was to take a really sleepy mundane end of the cop work and amp it up. We did research with real police officers whilst we were writing. We interviewed lots and lots of police officers both over the phone and in person." - Edgar Wright
Hot Fuzz is among films such as Tropic Thunder that satirise the many characteristics of Hollywood action films; exaggerated montage sequences, the stereotypical action hero, even referencing scenes in real-life movies like Point Break and Bad Boys II while parodying plotlines of American action movies through the lens of English culture. It doesn’t take long to realise that the movie is meta, whereby it recognises the stereotypes and tropes that they are referring to in the film while directly emulating them in other scenes as well. On a separate note, it explores the eccentric mannerisms of English culture through conversations and use of poor English humour; both of which I recognise and can confirm the authenticity of as I myself have experienced that myself. It is clear that plenty of research, 2 years worth in fact, has been done to portray the characters and ideas in the movie as accurately as possible with regards to Hollywood action tropes, English subculture, police mannerisms and more.
Concept: References to Point Break and the shortest car chase ever
CINEMATOGRAPHY
Another praiseworthy aspect of this film is its clever usage of visuals through its flashy and snappy cinematography. The usage of quick jump cuts strung together with swishing sound effects breathe life into scenes that reinvigorate your interest in the film as you would not want to miss a single moment. Furthermore, the engaging action sequences and dramatic close-up shots are very captivating to watch despite it not intending to be a serious action film. The film constantly subverts the audience’s expectations through elements such as its dark and murky lighting contrasting with quirky humorous dialogue coupled with fast-paced cuts in dull environments which still represents its overall bombastic nature. Great amounts of work were clearly put into planning every detail in each shot, whether it’d be a wide shot, close-up shot or if a scene needs to emphasise rack focus. Everything it does on the visual spectrum keeps the audience intrigued and at the edge of their seats.
Cinematography: Quick, swishing sound effects overlapping fast cuts
WHY YOU SHOULD WATCH
This movie makes you think about and reflect on multiple things from Hollywood culture to the terrible English sitcom folk humour. It is a satirical blockbuster masterpiece from start to finish, however, there are more things to look at than meets the eye. You watch as the stern Nicholas Angel, who always plays by the book, finally starts to loosen up throughout his story while slowly gaining acceptance and friendship from the townspeople. We are able to get attached to the character and grow along with him as the story goes on. We as the audience are also able to learn things like little golden police tidbits that are said in the film such as calling it the police "service" instead of "force" as that may imply aggression from an authoritative power. Moreover, we are able to observe and learn more about just being in the present and not getting caught up in life. PC Danny says that Nicholas does not know how to “switch off” as his focus seems to always be on work. It’s a simple yet important lesson about realising that it’s okay to relax for a while and appreciate the things around us; we must have times for focusing on our work and learning how to be in the moment as well. On a separate note, the final act of the movie was hysterical and a gunslinging, action-packed, self-aware, cheesy one-liner filled sequence of epic proportions. That is where most of action hero stereotypes can be observed at the highest level of their comical absurdity. As a whole, the visual humour and clever screenplay is nothing short of top-notch execution; no joke is wasted and every scene and line of dialogue is used precisely to produce an extremely funny well-crafted film.
"It was really tough and a real challenge and I came out of it with even more respect for the action directors that I love." - Edgar Wright
FINAL THOUGHTS
Overall, from the main characters to the side characters, the entire cast wore their theatrical hearts on their sleeves and did their roles spectacularly. The way they displayed their innate nature of making action stereotypes so hilarious and having people acting like peculiar middle-class folk from the obscure British countryside is amazing. The film is funny, sad, endearing, relatable, informative, entertaining, self-referential, meta; it even makes you learn about real-life culture and so much more. This is one of Edgar Wright’s best films ever made and should be on anyone’s watchlist if they haven’t seen it already.
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