Fuzzballs

My moviegoing companion got fatigued by Hot Fuzz last night, the new comedy from the young British team that previously brought us Shaun of the Dead. She felt is was too long, which at 121 minutes is arguably lengthy for a comedy. The conceit of the picture may be comedy-thin (all too successful cop gets reassigned from London to a sleepy English village with more crime than meets the eye), the plot may be fairly predictable; but I had a great time, big smile throughout the picture with enough hard laughs and more behind me from a geekier squad. I enjoyed spending the time with Simon Pegg but particularly with Nick Frost, who plays the lackadaisical, overweight smalltown cop with the penchant for action pictures. And most of all, I'm more familiar with the type of adolescent fantasy action films that always feature some hero hurtling himself sideways while firing off both his semi-automatics in slow motion. Better even with two heros firing their four guns total side-by-side.

Which is what Hot Fuzz delivers. Unlike some older movie parody styles, the movie is shot like the very Bay/Bruckheimer style action flicks it chides. Fast-cut close-ups of insert actions, only it isn't guns loading so much as morning rituals, mock epics in shot grammar form. There's nothing remotely lazy about the execution, and a lot of one's enjoyment of the picture will depend on recognizing the tropes quickly, since in its very fresh way there's no self-congratulatory lingering to make sure the audience "gets it." It's a comedy cut for DVD re-viewing, where that which felt subliminal as it whipped by the first time can be savored by Tarantino-style video fetishists everywhere.

The geek appeal is no joke, as director/co-writer Edgar Wright and star/co-writer Pegg clearly love action pictures as much as they reportedly love zombie pictures, the genre Shaun sent up. Although I admit I haven't seen that first film, the reports are that it also mixes overwrought Hollywood genre style with a satiric take on prosaic English behavior, effectively sending up both movies and real life at the same time. At the DNA level.

That first film seems to have wowed so much of the English-accented movie world that several big stars appear to have lined up for cameos. Steve Coogan (so brilliant in 24-Hour Party People and Coffee & Cigarettes) even goes uncredited, but he's followed by Bill Nighy, classic British actress Billie Whitelaw (with a very funny "fascist" routine), Peter Jackson (also uncredited, as "Santa") and, most elusively, Cate Blanchett -- not only uncredited by perversely unrecognizable with the bottom half of her face hidden for her entire dialogue scene.

Sure, it's a big ridiculous to see Hot Fuzz ranking in at #213 in the all-tie IMDB top 250, but consider the source. I normally don't like my movies cut so fast, so much more graphic than cinematic in shot design, but for this one it works. The best use of the action cinema grammar may actually be in the quietest scene, where Frost brings Pegg back to his flat for a heart-to-heart that grows increasingly homoerotic, underscoring whatever it is that a Bad Boys II or Lethal Weapon 100 might be desperately concealing under its steroidic male fantasy surface.

The geek boys and Hot Fuzz and high-ammunition count action pictures: it is indeed true love.