Hot Fuzz

Starring: Simon Pegg, Nick Frost

Directed by: Edgar Wright

RS: 3of 4 Stars

2007

Who knew? Apparently, there are English hipsters out there who revere trashy big-budget buddy-cop flicks like Lethal Weapon and Bad Boys. Hot Fuzz is the latest from the U.K. geek squad behind the cult comedy Shaun of the Dead: writer/director Edgar Wright, writer/star Simon Pegg, and demented plus-size sidekick Nick Frost. Together, they parody cop movies with the same fanaticism Shaun of the Dead brought to zombie flicks. For the first half or so, it's bloody brilliant. Pegg and Frost are police in a rustic English village. Great lines abound, like when Frost turns Pegg on to Bad Boys II: "Well, I won't argue that it was a no-holds-barred, adrenaline-fueled thrill ride, but there's no way you could perpetrate that amount of carnage and mayhem and not incur a considerable amount of paperwork."

After an hour and fifteen minutes, it all winds down, and you think, that was short and sweet, exactly how a comedy should be. Unfortunately, Hot Fuzz doesn't end – it turns into a different movie, an action film that drags on for an unbelievable forty-five minutes. Tedious? Very. Oh well—the funny part is great, with Frost doing one of cinema's finest ice-cream brain-freeze scenes. Extras: It's hard to believe such an overlong film had any outtakes — but the DVD offers twenty-two deleted scenes. There's also commentaries, a making-of doc, and one of Wright's student films.