Hot Fuzz (2007)
Directed by Edgar Wright
Former London constable Nicholas Angel finds it difficult to adapt to his new assignment in the sleepy British village of Sandford. Not only does he miss the excitement of the big city, but he also has a well-meaning oaf for a partner. However, when a series of grisly accidents rocks Sandford, Angel smells something rotten in the idyllic village.
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What critics say influenced Hot Fuzz
The homages to hugely popular pictures are crystal clear, but the genre-spoofing moviemakers have done their homework – scenes derived from “First Blood,” “Die Hard,” “Lethal Weapon,” Sergio Leone’s “The Man With No Name” trilogy, “Straw Dogs,” “Chinatown,” “Brannigan,” and countless others are lampooned with varying degrees of subtlety, each being every bit as amusing, especially for eagle-eyed action connoisseurs.
Aside from the obvious nepotism Danny's name might imply, he's also got a rather casual relationship with reality, having informed his police sensibilities with every American Cop Movie from Dirty Harry to Lethal Weapon to Die Hard... but his favorites (and the ones both laughingly paid tribute to and viciously skewered by Hot Fuzz) are Bad Boys II and Point Break.
With pages, not to mention exploding fireballs, taken from such seminal shoot-'em-up classics as Bad Boys, Die Hard and Point Break, Hot Fuzz turns the quaint, cobblestone streets of staid Olde England into a madcap mess of mayhem and murder.
The Matrix series, the Die Hard Series, the Lethal Weapon series, and John Woo’s films are only the tip of the iceberg.
Sure, everyone is fawning over Superbad, which was OK, but if you’re an action movie fan, especially of stuff along the lines of Die Hard or Lethal Weapon you really need to see this movie.
Wright and Pegg love the Bad Boys and Die Hards of the cinematic world as much as any fanboy, and it shows in every stunt and gag -- from the genre's omnipresent homoeroticism to scenes of cops filling out paperwork edited frantically enough to give Tony Scott a seizure.
But Simon Pegg’s lead is an action hero among regular folk… Hot Fuzz reminds me a lot of Last Action Hero .
Fuzz explicitly references flicks like Bad Boys II and Point Break -- and later, when Pegg and Wright ratchet up the satire, there are sly nods to Terminator 2 and Robocop and a dozen other classic action movies, cop movies, and buddy movies -- but it doesn’t ape them.
Hot Fuzz ’s primary target of adoration and satire is the buddy action movie, with the screenplay referencing and paying homage to everything from Bad Boys II to Point Break , and even the Miami Vice TV show.
Helmed by Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg, who brought us the hilarious zombie shocker Shaun of the Dead in 2004, Fuzz lifts the genre of buddy movies to a new level and pays an earnest homage to famed action spectacles such as Bad Boys II and Point Break .
Upon arriving in Sandford, he realizes that his commanding officer (Jim Broadbent) is a flake and his peers are morons, although he does strike up a friendship with Danny Butterman (Frost), a well-meaning cop who finds spiritual guidance in the movies Bad Boys II and Point Break.
Directed by Edgar Wright, and written by Wright and Simon Pegg, the duo who brought us the hilarious 2004 zombie shocker Shaun of the Dead , Hot Fuzz lifts the “buddy movie” genre to a new level while paying homage to popular action flicks like Bad Boys II and Point Break .
As the grotesque nature of the apparently random murders escalates, so too does a blood-and-bullets spectacle to rival gnarly action-thrillers like Michael Bay’s "Bad Boys II," a movie referenced in one of Danny’s rants about great cop movies.
A tongue-in-cheek homage to the director famous for Armageddon , Bad Boys and Transformers: Dark of the Moon .
"Hot Fuzz," by contrast, is a take-off on the Michael Bay ("Bad Boys," "The Rock") school of filmmaking that never lets you forget for a millisecond how absurd those Bay films really are.
Wright and Pegg love the Bad Boys and Die Hards of the cinematic world as much as any fanboy, and it shows in every stunt and gag -- from the genre's omnipresent homoeroticism to scenes of cops filling out paperwork edited frantically enough to give Tony Scott a seizure.
Les clins d’œil sont évidemment nombreux dans Hot Fuzz, passant en revue des genres comme le western et le slasher en plus de références techniques à des films plus spécifiques tels Bad Boys, Robocop et même Godzilla.
A tongue-in-cheek homage to the director famous for Armageddon , Bad Boys and Transformers: Dark of the Moon .
The homages to hugely popular pictures are crystal clear, but the genre-spoofing moviemakers have done their homework – scenes derived from “First Blood,” “Die Hard,” “Lethal Weapon,” Sergio Leone’s “The Man With No Name” trilogy, “Straw Dogs,” “Chinatown,” “Brannigan,” and countless others are lampooned with varying degrees of subtlety, each being every bit as amusing, especially for eagle-eyed action connoisseurs.
Much of the success of "Hot Fuzz" should be credited to director Wright, who accomplishes the delicate balancing act of paying tribute to movies like "Lethal Weapon" and "Bullitt" while poking fun at the same time.
Aside from the obvious nepotism Danny's name might imply, he's also got a rather casual relationship with reality, having informed his police sensibilities with every American Cop Movie from Dirty Harry to Lethal Weapon to Die Hard... but his favorites (and the ones both laughingly paid tribute to and viciously skewered by Hot Fuzz) are Bad Boys II and Point Break.
There’s a good deal of Lethal Weapon references, as well as Terminator 2 ones.
Teaming the all-business/all-the-time Angel and the let's-have-an-ice-cream Butterman is like throwing Laurel and Hardy into Lethal Weapon.
The Matrix series, the Die Hard Series, the Lethal Weapon series, and John Woo’s films are only the tip of the iceberg.
On the civilian side you�ve got Paul �Belloq� Freeman as the town priest, Lethal Weapon 3�s heavy Stuart Wilson as Sandford�s doctor and The Equalizer himself, Edward Woodward, watching the neighborhood from every angle.
The murder of the journalist contains an echo of Patrick Troughton's demise in the original The Omen (even the music is slyly quoted) but the ensuing sight of the moment of death is really quite alarming given the comedy DNA of Hot Fuzz's premise's promise.
Timothy Dalton plays a slick grocery-store owner; Paddy Considine is a grumpy undercover cop; Billie Whitelaw -- who appeared in "The Omen" but who's better known as a stage actress, closely associated with the work of Samuel Beckett -- plays a passive-aggressive innkeeper.
Appearances by Ed Woodward from "Wicker Man" and Billie Whitelaw from "The Omen" are almost giveaways, as the movie mines Wright and Pegg's encyclopedic knowledge of genre films, fully realizing that only a select few will even recognize them.
Even lesser-known but still recognizable Brits show up, including the original The Omen â??s Billie Whitelaw (Mrs.
The best of both old and new Brit talent has been gathered here, including Anne Reid ("The Mother"), Billie Whitelaw ("The Omen"), Bill Nighy ("Notes on a Scandal"), Edward Woodward ("The Equalizer"), and Timothy Dalton (James Bond).
But there are some decent examples out there - Johnny English is a goofy spy spoof also made in the UK but for greatness, you'll struggle to beat the inspired Airplane!
It wouldn’t have been a problem had the movie been made in the similar vein as “Airplane!,”…
The Review: When I think of spoof movies, I think of the movie that’s become the template of all that followed…1980’s Airplane!
Most spoofs and satires suck these days because they try too hard to make you laugh instead of playing it straight like the actors did in “Airplane!”
On the other hand, if they had, it wouldn't make Hot Fuzz such a blast: the best genre satire since Top Secret! and the best film of any sort so far this year.
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Not that I'd do away with such funny bits as the homage to Baz Luhrmann's "Romeo + Juliet" or the swan running gag, not to mention the priceless supporting turns by some of the finest actors in the UK (Timothy Dalton, Bill Nighy, Martin Freeman, Steve Coogan, Jim Broadbent, Paddy Considine, etc.).
There's also a most terrible homage to Romeo + Juliet, which might go down as some of the best intentionally bad Shakespeare ever put on film.
Aside from the obvious nepotism Danny's name might imply, he's also got a rather casual relationship with reality, having informed his police sensibilities with every American Cop Movie from Dirty Harry to Lethal Weapon to Die Hard... but his favorites (and the ones both laughingly paid tribute to and viciously skewered by Hot Fuzz) are Bad Boys II and Point Break.
Whether you are the kind of hard-core action buff who can recount the plot points of “Silent Rage” or “Freebie and the Bean” in obsessive detail or the kind of newbie who has yet to catch up with the likes of “Dirty Harry,” “Hot Fuzz” is the kind of instant classic comedy that will have you smiling for weeks after seeing it.
For example, we have "loner" films like Dirty Harry, we have buddy movies like Lethal Weapon, and we have in-between movies like The French Connection .
I'm talking arming-up montage, "Cobra" sunglasses and toothpick, non-stop cheesy one-liners said in a "Dirty Harry" voice, shoot-outs, car chases, fights, the whole shebang!
The plot is basically Coogan’s Bluff in reverse: an uptight, arrest-happy metropolitan cop Nicholas Angel (Pegg) is promoted to Sergeant, but as part of the deal, he has to relocate from London to the sleepy West Country town of Sandford.
At times I wished I was watching one of its sources of inspiration, like “Point Break,” from the gonzo action craftswoman Kathryn Bigelow (who’s way more talented than Bay).
At one point Danny, convinced that Angel, having worked in London, has seen all the action and excitement he longs for, describes his favorite scene from the Keanu Reeves-Patrick Swayze dazzler "Point Break."
This was especially evident when Danny mentioned his love of 1991’s Point Break and 2003’s Bad Boys II.
He dreams of being an awesome cop like Keanu Reeves in Point Break and either of the bad boys in Bad Boys II.
Unfortunately, real life is not like Point Break .
Older viewers may also be reminded of Alberto Cavalcanti's dizzyingly subversive WWII classic Went the Day Well? (1942), in which a squadron of German soldiers – posing as English tommies – infiltrate a sleepy village.
The greatest pity might be its advertising campaign, which misleads about the amount and type of action contained in its body while giving away some of the picture's best, and most patient, Went the Day Well? surprises.
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With HOT FUZZ writer-director Edgar Wright and co-writer and star Pegg send up action films in the same vein that SHAUN OF THE DEAD goofed on the horror genre.
This is second feature from the writer/director and writer/star pairing of Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg, the duo behind the downright addictive zombie movie homage Shaun of the Dead, and it is just as funny, just as spot-on, and almost as addicting.
The team that brought us Shaun of the Dead — writer-director Edgar Wright, writer-star Simon Pegg and co-star Nick Frost — takes a shot or 12 at the police procedural with Hot Fuzz, an amusing comedy that also manages to evoke memories of The Wicker Man, Plague of the Zombies and other spooky yarns centering on eccentric villagers inhabiting the less-traveled paths of the British Isles.
The team of Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg, the guys who combined guffaws and gore in Shaun of the Dead , have elected to follow their offbeat zombie farce with an action comedy.
HOT FUZZ The team that brought us Shaun of the Dead -- writer-director Edgar Wright, writer-star Simon Pegg and costar Nick Frost -- now take a shot or 12 at the police procedural with Hot Fuzz, a funny if distressingly overlong comedy that also manages to evoke memories of The Wicker Man, Plague of the Zombies and other spooky yarns centering on eccentric villagers inhabiting the less-traveled paths of the British Isles.
Director Edgar Wright and co-writer/star Simon Pegg, who raised fresh laughs from the inspired walking-dead spoof "Shaun of the Dead," reteam for a parody of armed-and-dangerous buddy-cop films by way of the cozy little British murder mysteries in picturesque rural villages.
It plays out like a massive Where's Waldo puzzle where one has to spot all the reference points, which often overlap and intertwine, improbably running a reference to The Shining right into one from Point Break.
Overt references to those mentioned movies exist, and there are lines directly taken from Chinatown, The Shining, and, of course, Shaun of the Dead (a replay of the shortcut gag from that movie is quite funny).
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
Directed by Stanley Kubrick
Themes
Nevertheless, for all the constant, if somewhat muted comedy, the feeling of the is very…odd, because for all its humor the movie is essentially playing it straight, and not in the Dr. Strangelove sense of reality being so absurd as to be comedic.