Slapping an R-rating on a film can denote a few things to the audience. For a comedy, that usually means exhaustive swearing, nudity, and maybe a gross-out slapstick violence sequence. Generally speaking, using that kind of content can almost be a crutch, to hold up an otherwise tepid movie with not much else to offer beyond a few stars and a cookie cutter plot. It’s a way to get people in the theater. Edgar Wright‘s 2007 film Hot Fuzz takes the opposite approach. Wright, along with his usual stars Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, use the freedom the rating gives them to make a movie that is genuinely funny, and a satire of action films, while also being an incredible action film in its own right. Wright, a devotee of “shlock” cinema, does not elevate genre cinema, rather he treats it with the respect it has always deserved, and makes an excellent film in the meantime.
Edgar Wright Makes His Mark on Genre Cinema
Wright’s filmmaking style is heavily indebted to his own love of movies, specifically “genre” cinema. Horror films, noir films, whatever people would consider less than serious filmmaking. Once relegated to the dust bin of film history, it has roared back in recent years, with filmmakers like Seijun Suzuki and Sam Raimi being held to the acclaim they deserve. While Wright has made love letters to zombie films with Shaun of the Dead, and to Giallo films with Last Night in Soho, Hot Fuzz specifically deals with the police action film, riffing on touchstones of the genre like Kathryn Bigelow‘s Point Break. The give and take with any genre film is that they are usually made on the cheap, with simple plots, and the bare minimum all around to maximize profit. The tropes often repeat themselves in every film, and you end up with a lot of very forgettable films. However, when a passionate crew is working on them, the results can be incredible. Wright is keenly aware of that, and goes into the film with deep love and admiration toward the material he is working with.
An R-rating is very important to the kind of movie Wright is making. Any great cop action film is full of violence. Blood squibs, explosions, brutal fight scenes, and swearing detectives all make the genre what it is. However, there is a bit of an impasse. These films are usually dead serious. How do you make that funny? Hot Fuzz is a comedy after all, and Wright is certainly a comedic filmmaker. It is within that seriousness that Wright finds the humor of the film. Nick Angel, portrayed wonderfully by Simon Pegg, is the top cop in London before he’s sent out to rural England for being too good at his job. When he arrives at Sandford, there is total culture shock. It is an almost crime-free town, beyond just standard underage drinking and the like. The police force is full of apathetic officers, highlighted by great performances by Paddy Considine and Olivia Colman, years before they would become the big stars they are now. This is highlighted in a particularly funny scene where we see Pegg booking some kids for underage drinking, filmed with the panache and intensity of a Michael Mann shootout.
But the rest of the film is defined by Pegg’s relationship with his most common co-star, Nick Frost, playing Danny Butterman, the man-child son of the Angel’s new boss. Frost plays an action film fanatic, who pesters Pegg with questions regarding things he’s done on the job, or if he’s seen Bad Boys II. Pegg and Frost play off each other excellently as usual, with Pegg’s subdued straight man allowing Frost to do his usual standard of comedic work seen in his other collaborations with Wright. His physical comedy especially shines, and he manages to flip that switch into action mode very well. Seeing both of them in this compared to Shaun of the Dead shows the range of Pegg especially, who manages to play a super cop without it seeming stilted at all. Combine that with he aforementioned deep cast, including Timothy Dalton as an evil supermarket baron, and some great bit parts for Bill Nighy and Martin Freeman as London cops, and you have the setup for an excellent comedy.
‘Hot Fuzz’ Is More Than Your Average Comedy
However, Hot Fuzz is so much more than just a comedy. It’s one thing to make a film that sends up a popular genre, that’s pretty common in filmmaking, and has been for a very long time. Wright certainly pokes fun at the conventions of the genre, but the film does so much more than your standard comedy. For one, Wright is so adept at visual comedy. The way the camera moves, the set design, the blocking, even the editing makes you laugh. Unlike most comedies, Hot Fuzz has such a unique style that makes it stand out, and allows for the comedy to come from beyond the performances and the dialogue. And beyond that, it is an incredible action film. The final act of the film features some of the most memorable action scenes in a film from the 2000s, let alone in a comedy film. The action is filmed beautifully, there are memorable fights, each location and scene has its own unique feeling that makes the action feel even more dynamic, and that final, almost-kill is one of the goriest and skin crawling scenes ever seen in a comedy film.
Hot Fuzz stands out among the crowd of R-rated comedies because it does something with that label that no other film does. Where most comedies stick with the standard explicit content, it goes in a great direction, fusing action and comedy in a way that both genres manage to shine, without either one undercutting the other. It is an excellent example of making an R-rated comedy with depth, that has a solid structure, emotional beats, and still enough crass humor and bloody violence to really earn that R-rating. Wright fuses genres seamlessly, and his love of the films he’s paying homage to comes through every moment of this film. It is a great action film, it is a great comedy film, and it makes the most out of everything it has at its disposal. In a world where a great comedy film is getting harder and harder to find, Hot Fuzz is a hilarious film, and one you should watch as soon as possible,
