Hot Fuzz

With this uproarious parody of action flicks featuring cops as protagonists, screenwriters Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg do to the “buddy movie” what they did to zombie films with Shaun of the Dead. Pegg takes center stage as London-based supercop Nick Angel, who's transferred to a sleepy country village because he's making his less-effective fellow officers look bad. Partnered with Danny Butterman (Nick Frost), a gormless incompetent whose concept of police work has been derived from watching American action movies, Nick spends his time busting underage drinkers and chasing runaway swans—until he realizes that a spate of seemingly unrelated accidents are part of a grand, murderous master plan. Wright's direction strikes precisely the right tone: the laughs come fast and furious, but the over-the-top action scenes are staged and shot exactly like something out of Lethal Weapon or Bad Boys, meaning that Hot Fuzz—like all the best spoofs—expertly replicates the qualities of the films it's sending up. Highly recommended. [Note: DVD extras include audio commentary with co-writer/costar Simon Pegg and co-writer-director Edgar Wright, an optional “Fuzz-O-Meter” trivia and storyboard track, “The Fuzzball Rally: U.S. Tour Piece” featurette on the press tour (28 min.), 22 deleted scenes with optional commentary (21 min.), 11 minutes of outtakes, “Hot Funk” scenes re-dubbed with edited voiceovers (4 min.), a “Danny's Notebook” flipbook cartoon segment, a “The Man Who Would be Fuzz” outtake, and trailers. Bottom line: a fine extras package for a winning comedy.] (E. Hulse)[Blu-ray Review—Sept. 15, 2009—Universal, 121 min., R, $26.98—Making its first appearance on Blu-ray, 2007's Hot Fuzz sports a great transfer with DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 sound. Blu-ray extras include five audio commentaries (the first with writer-star Simon Pegg and writer-director Edgar Wright; second with Pegg and costars Nick Frost, Jim Broadbent, Rafe Spall, Kevin Eldon, and Olivia Colman; third with Wright and guest Quentin Tarentino; fourth with costars Kenneth Cranham, Timothy Dalton, Paul Freeman and Edward Woodward; and fifth with real-life police officers Andy Leafe and Nick Eckland), “The Fuzzball Rally” on the press tour (71 min.), video blogs (68 min.), Wright's “Falsified: Dead Right” early film with optional commentary and a “making-of” featurette (50 min. total), eight “Forensic” behind-the-scenes featurettes on production, set tours, stunts, and special effects (45 min. total), a “Plot Holes” featurette (4 min.), a “Conclusive: We Made Hot Fuzz” featurette (30 min.), a special effects sequence comparison (7 min.), deleted scenes (20 min.), outtakes (17 min), a “Hot Funk” edited TV version of scenes (4 min.), a “Fuzz-O-Meter” pop-up trivia interactive feature, pop-up storyboards, stills galleries (storyboard, photo, and poster), the BD-Live function, and trailers. Bottom line: this popular over-the-top buddy-cop-thriller spoof looks sharp on Blu-ray.]