"Hot Fuzz," featuring Simon Pegg as Sgt. Nicholas Angel and Nick Frost as Police Constable (PC) Daniel Butterman sails the waters first charted by movies such as "The Naked Gun," and plays out to be a straight-up cop-movie farce. "Fuzz" tells the story of a metropolitan police officer (Pegg), who is so effective at his job that he is transferred to sleepy Sandford for making the rest of his department look bad. Paired with the fabulously inept PC Butterman, he soon stumbles upon a series of bizarre accidents that may not be accidents, and things just get complicated from here on. The plot, in the end, plays out like an episode of "Scooby Doo" ("What? It was Mrs. Butterworth? Trying to scare away tenants so she could build her syrup factory? Zoiks!"), and even its bizarre twists can't save it from the hum of mediocrity.
The weakness of the plot proves to be one of the biggest liabilities for this film, as it is predominantly plot-driven. Whereas "Shaun" drew its humor from character comedy, "Fuzz" tries, with ultimately minimal success, to invest you in its plot, and uses this to move the action of the film forward. The characters are predominantly one-dimensional tropes, which is fitting for the genre being spoofed, but fails in this film because they are not supported by a particularly interesting story within which to go through their routine. Frost essentially reprises his role of "idiot" from the previous film, and has his moments in doing so, but Pegg as the tough-as-nails cop is just too much of a stretch. Pegg is at his best when he gets mopey and pathetic, which he does in the first and second acts, but his attempts at the stoic tough guy throughout the film aren't as much funny as they are sad.
The parody aspects of this film go a little too far as well. The camerawork is shot in the sort of frenzied fast-paced style we've come to expect of action movies, and shots often cut to another in seconds. At first, the use of this style for even the most mundane activities is fairly entertaining, but after a while, realizing that the entire movie is shot this way, one stops laughing and starts wishing he had brought Advil. The movie also pays direct homage to films of the genre such as "Bad Boys II." A particular scene from the tiresome 1991 Swayze/Reeves shoot-em-up "Point Break" is referred to on at least three occasions in the film, and finally the audience is wont to say, "I get it! Move on!"
Don't get me wrong, the film certainly has its fun parts. Pegg and Wright's love of random gore is a bit surprising but well-used in this film. Shenanigans and running jokes abound, and the writers do have a flair for comedic timing in dialogue which has the power to elicit knowing grins even when it's not making you audibly laugh. The film really kicks up the heat in the third act in a prolonged and hilarious action segment, and in some ways this redeems how slow the rest of the film can seem, but it almost feels like it's too little, too late. Even laughing, I was secretly hoping the movie would end soon.
It isn't that "Hot Fuzz" is exceptionally bad, it's just that it doesn't stand out in any way. It seems that the writers have forgotten or lost a lot of the subtlety that made their previous film so devilishly entertaining. The laughs are there-sometimes-and they are quite satisfying when they come. But what's missing is the craftsmanship and love of film. It shows even in the soundtrack, which doesn't come anywhere near to matching the sublime timing and taste that this team has shown in the past.
"Hot Fuzz" is worth a Netflix; it has its moments and a particular charm to it that will entertain when you need a fix for boredom, but there really are better things to do with your Saturday night than this maybe-kind-of-like-it movie.