HOT FUZZ

is the incredibly awesome new film from Simon Pegg, Nick Frost and director Edgar Wright, the brilliant team behind Shaun of the Dead. In Hot Fuzz they do for action movies what Shaun of the Dead did for horror films.

In a way, a more appropriate comparison would be Wes Craven's Scream, because part of the fun of Hot Fuzz is that the characters call out every single action movie cliche you can think of, giving special honors to "Point Break" and "Bad Boys 2". Both movies work pretty effectively as both a film IN the genre they're parodying, and a parody of that genre. Hot Fuzz is hilarious, but when it gets down to the action, it's as exciting, enjoyable and over-the-top as any badass action film.

Simon Pegg plays Nick Angel, the best London cop there is, who is so good that he's transferred to the safest village in England to avoid making the rest of the team look bad. Once there he brings his hard-boiled cop style to the sleepy village and gets mixed-up in a bizarre undercurrent of mysterious deaths. Nick Frost plays his partner Danny, who has an immense DVD library and encylopedic knowledge of action movie cliches, but despairs of ever seeing any action in real life.

The razor-sharp visual style Edgar Wright developed in Shaun of the Dead is pushed even farther in Hot Fuzz, and the dialogue is even wittier and more off-the-wall. Simon Pegg and Nick Frost are again excellent and show an incredible rapport with one another that the movie, like a lot of action films, can be read on one level as a love story between these two partners. It's just that in Hot Fuzz, the people making the movie are aware of these subtexts and not afraid of them. It's funny, but it's sincere and heartfelt as well. Timothy Dalton and Jim Broadbent give great comedic performances and the whole cast of oddball villagers is terrific.

Hot Fuzz is probably the most hands-down enjoyable movie I've seen so far this year, excepting possible Robert Rodriguez's Planet Terror. As a comedy it's hilarious, as an action movie it kicks serious ass. Definitely recommended in the highest possible terms.