It is, I am told, always difficult to create something for public consumption when your first piece is a resounding hit. Always benefiting from a longer gestation period, that first piece invariably sets a challenge to any creator: improve with your second piece or have that first piece be considered a fluke. So, when your first film is one of the most popular British comedies of recent years (and was made without a Hugh Grant in sight) then you had better hope that your follow up is as funny. Hot Fuzz is the second film collaboration between Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright, the team that brought us Shaun of the Dead as well as the cult sitcom Spaced, a loud, brash and blood-soaked affair, Hot Fuzz comes roaring out of the gate intent upon leaving the more sedate and low key Shaun of the Dead in the dust. However, despite slicker direction, a huge gag-rate and an all star British comedy cast, Hot Fuzz ultimately lacks the intelligence and depth of Shaun of the Dead, resulting in a film that’s full of blood but ultimately devoid of a heart.
Nicholas Angel is, for want of a better word, a super-cop. Double first in politics and sociology, an arrest record second to none, and more commendations and awards than you can shake a night-stick at. He is also making his fellow police officers look bad, prompting his superiors to ship him off to an idyllic town in rural Gloucestershire where he goes from kicking in doors with SO19 to tracking down wayward swans and breaking in a partner more concerned with scoffing Cornettos and watching Bad Boys II on DVD than doing his job as a copper. However, when a couple of the local amateur dramatics mob get their heads cut off in a car accident, Angel starts to get suspicious and grows increasingly so when more and more gruesome accidents start befalling the local citizenry.
Visually, Edgar Wright is eager to re-use the same visual stylings that he deployed in Shaun of the Dead. Every time a door opens we get the sharply edited close-up shots of hands gripping handles, keys sliding into locks and fingers punching in code numbers in a style reminiscent of the succession of images used when people get high in Aronofsky’s Requiem for a Dream. These little functional scenes give the film a certain urgency and complement Wright’s tendency to hug close to his actors during the talky bits as if to force our attentions onto what is being said, perhaps also smoothing out the performances of a cast largely comprised of comic actors and stand-up comedians. Indeed, since Spaced, Wright has developed a strong visual style all of his own which is actually refreshing in a comedy director if that style is used wisely.
Whereas Shaun of the Dead featured cameos from a number of different British TV actors, Hot Fuzz’s cast is positively groaning under the famous names from Steve Coogan (I’m Alan Partridge) and Martin Freedman (The Office) to Olivia Colman (Peep Show) and Bill Bailey (Black Books). In fact, the only notably absent faces are, ironically enough, the increasingly over-exposed David Mitchell and Robert Webb, though they were probably too busy filming horrifically smug and ill-judged computer adverts (speaking of which, in Peep Show, isn’t David Mitchell supposed to be the sympathetic one while Webb plays a preening style-over-substance twat? hardly the image Apple are looking for). By and large the supporting cast do good work with Timothy Dalton (criminally under-rated as Bond) Colman (playing against type) and Kevin Eldon (doing well in an under-written part as usual) all doing well. However, for all the quality on display in the supporting cast, the film undeniably belongs to Pegg and Frost. Pegg growls his way through the two-dimensional and unsympathetic Angel but, as in Shaun of the Dead, he is acted off the screen by Nick Frost who, I am reliably informed, has a perfect Gloucestershire accent and turns in a delightfully sympathetic and complex performance as the hopeless Danny Butterman. Indeed, the fact that Nick Frost did well in Shaun could be chalked up to luck but the fact that he has now done well in two films despite being regularly terrible in all of his TV appearances really poses some questions about his motivation and trajectory as a professional comic actor. Is the real Nick Frost the man we see humbling Simon Pegg on the big screen or is it the lazy comedy slag from Man Stroke Woman? at this point, your guess is as good as anyone’s, in fact, I doubt even Frost himself knows.
The most notable stylistic difference between Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz is in the density of the material. Hot Fuzz has about twenty important characters, all with complex relationships and characteristics that need to be established and this is without taking into account the numerous little observations that make the town of Sandford what it is. All of this detailing and scene-setting has to share screen time with the huge number of references and jokes that Pegg and Wright cram into the film. This approach differs markedly to the frequently languid pacing of Shaun of the Dead where jokes were allowed to blossom and fall from the branch. In Hot Fuzz if you blink you’ll miss a reference to Jurassic Park or Chinatown while nice ideas such as an AmDram version of Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliette get squeezed into mere seconds. The increased gag-rate not only means that there are more duff jokes on display than in Shaun of the Dead it also means that the jokes that do work are less memorable as you have so little time to appreciate that for every gem (“She got fingered up the duck pond”) you remember you’ll also be stuck with unfunny lines seemingly aimed more at pandering to Pegg and Wright’s fanbase than actually making anyone laugh (“By the power of Greyskull!”).
The uneven quality level of the comedy is also disappointing as Hot Fuzz’s primary targets are rural stereotypes. Compared to the darkly satyrical targets of Shaun of the Dead, this makes Hot Fuzz feel complacent and lazy instead of relentlessly funny. Frankly, anyone who can’t get laughs out of inbred country-folk has no business writing comedy, which speaks ill of such experienced and critically lauded troopers as Pegg and Wright.
However, despite Hot Fuzz never completely convincing, it never really struggles and pootles along quite happily generating the odd laugh for the first sixty minutes or so until the village’s big conspiracy is uncovered.
the final hour of Hot Fuzz sees it shift gears from being a knockabout comedy to being a proper action film as Pegg and Wright stage the kind of increasingly violent and over the top car chases, shoot-outs, fist-fights and explosions that are common currency in the Bruckheimer/Bay-style actions films that clearly inspired Pegg and Wright to make this film. Unfortunately, the action goes on for far too long as, knowingly, the film ends again and again only for more “not dead yet” baddies to appear. While the speed and density of the first two acts serve to hide the film’s low hit-rate and other problems, the final act’s dull shoot-outs serve only to accentuate them. All of sudden we notice how paper-thin the bad guys are and how ludicrous it is that some characters side with Angel despite hating him only a few minutes earlier. In fact, amid all the carnage and mayhem the only thing that I could think about was, would it really matter if Angel didn’t survive?
Herein lies the film’s main problem. Shaun of the Dead was an incredibly well-written film. Aside from the jokes and the set-pieces, Wright and Pegg showed a real understanding of the mechanics and emotional pressure points of the horror genre. So what was, at first glance, a zombie story was actually an adroit satire of the way so many of us sleep-walk through our lives AND a story of one man attempting to reconcile his love for his girlfriend and his desire to move forward with her with his love for his best friend and the desire to remain safe in their old habits. Hot Fuzz, has NONE of this. No clever subtext, no believable and touching relationships and no solid emotional core. Shaun was a loveable loser, Angel is an officious prick driven on more by his desire to be right in the face of criticism by idiotic yokels than he is by his desire to do the right thing or become a more rounded person.
This failure to ground the film in firm characters and relationships makes Hot Fuzz feel contrived and formulaic rather than warm and worthy of love... the qualities that ultimately gave Shaun of the Dead as well as Spaced their cult following. Hot Fuzz is a fair evening out and will doubtless do brisk business, especially given the generally horrific quality of big screen comedies but I would be very much surprised if it sustains its popularity the way Shaun of the Dead has.
Imagine if Hugh Grant had been in SHAUN OF THE DEAD... he he!
"Dreadful business, this zombie plague. You must think I'm a beast for whacking their heads in with this cricket ba... ARRRGHHH!"
;-)
Posted by: A.R.Yngve | February 19, 2007 at 01:32 PM
I thought it was better than Shaun. The bit I thought was really clever was the double plot whereby it looked like the motivation for the murders was going to be a property deal but it transpired to be rural tory logic taken to extremes. It works because it distracts us first and then when our defences are down suddenly reveals the truth about the countryside alliance and the campaign for the preservation of rural england and all others of that ilk. I can't think of any other groups in modern life who deserve to be the butt of comedy more.
Posted by: Nick Hubble | March 28, 2007 at 05:02 PM