Hercule Poirot once proclaimed that "the police in England are only adequate, but the English detective is a thing of marvel!" Sherlock Holmes would have agreed, having put up with the uninspired adequacy of Scotland Yard for most of his career. But no more: The English police or rather "the fuzz in the U.K.," to borrow a phrase from director Edgar Wright's maddeningly brilliant "Hot Fuzz," is a force to be reckoned with.
Forget the idea of staid constables strolling leisurely on London Bridge on a foggy night as their chief inspector back at the Yard writes up reports with a fountain pen, inserting quotes from Shakespeare to show off his Oxbridge education — the fuzz in this movie have no time for English niceties, much less a sit-down for a hot cuppa.
Crammed to the gills with action, gunfire and good old English profanities galore, "Hot Fuzz" seems to spoof almost every cop film ever made, the most notable ones being "Lethal Weapon," "Starsky and Hutch," "Miami Vice" and "Bad Boys II." But keeping tabs on what scene harks to which movie is far less important than keeping up with the actual story, which can only be described as freakishly ridiculous, in a good way. It's particular texture is "Monty Python" meets "Seven Samurai," with a muddy, bloody soccer match thrown in for good measure; but in the end, who cares? Attempting to discuss "Hot Fuzz" is a pointless endeavor, like going on and on about the merits of a pair of exceptionally wonderful running shoes — the only right way to deal with them is to try them on. Afterward, one is filled with a deep and appreciative understanding of the English expression "taking the piss," which is no small thing. Director/Writer Wright turned heads when he released the zombie spoof called "Shaun of the Dead" two years back. For "Hot Fuzz," he teams up again with fellow writer and leading actor Simon Pegg, and this time the laughs come faster, and all the stops are pulled when it comes to gore, car chases and gun slinging. Yet the humor is adamantly British. You'll savor lines such as, "There is no way you can perpetrate that amount of carnage and mayhem and not incur a considerable amount of paperwork," and laugh out loud when a village gentleman reports a missing swan, and gives his name as P.I. Staker (Piss Taker, get it?).