SIMON Pegg and Nick Frost - stars of British comedy instantly recognisable, even to me, bearing in mind that for some reason I can never remember anything they've been in.
Well, that’s not entirely true. Frost’s credits are a mystery, though maybe his resemblance (I think so anyway) to that Tyrone bloke off Coronation Street is throwing me.
Pegg, I know, guested in Dr. Who; had a minor role in a recent Stateside mov
ie (I can’t remember its title though, so you begin to see what I mean) and then there was ‘Shaun of the Dead’, regarding which I belong to the not so vocal minority who haven’t seen it.
From the same makers comes ‘Hot Fuzz’ (15) a Pegg/Frost pairing I’m sure to remember, for all the right reasons.
Pegg is Nicholas Angel, London supercop, commended nine times and with an arrest record 400% higher than any other officer. His colleagues hate him.
He’s promoted and packed off to sleepy Sandford - close rural community, village fetes, country pubs, not one recorded murder in 20 years and police who wouldn’t recognise a crime if they witnessed it.
Angel is paired with PC Danny Butterman (Frost), so laid back he’s practically horizontal but a wannabe action hero just the same and an instant worshipper of the big city cop.
Drowning in monotony, Angel begins to smell a rat when horrific ‘accidents’ (do be prepared for some outrageously grisly ends) befall a few locals, but he’d have more chance of getting through to his beloved pot plant that he would his new colleagues.
With desperate Danny in tow he begins an investigation that leads to a showdown with some unlikely villains and an honest-to-goodness firefight (well, hardly honest, but if laughter’s the best medicine, full of goodness).
‘Hot Fuzz’ features some British heavyweights, including one or two successful international exports. Jim Broadbent is Sandford’s Inspector and Danny’s dad; Bill Nighy appears as Angel’s London chief; former 007 Timothy Dalton is a local businessman and ‘The Equaliser’, Edward Woodward, who himself fell foul of some unconventional villagers as a blow-in Bobby in ‘The Wicker Man’, plays head of the Neighbourhood Watch.
Stephen Merchant, Ricky Gervais’s manager in ‘Extras’, appears as one P. I. Staker (work it out); Martin Freeman (The Office/Love Actually) and Bill Bailey are boys in blue and fans of TV’s ‘Rome’ will recognise James Reaper (Kenneth Cranham) and PC Walker (Karl Johnson) as Pompey and Cato respectively.
‘Hot Fuzz’ is a triumphant spoof, a comedy gem with so much hardware and flying lead that the over-the-top action is almost in danger of taking on a dramatic edge. Pegg and Frost are no Crockett and Tubbs, but they deliver a lot of laughs pretending to be.
