Director: Edgar Wright
Starring: Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Jim Broadbent, Timothy Dalton
Running Time: 121 minutes
Synopsis: Overachieving Constable Nicholas Angel (Simon Pegg) of London's Metro Police is promoted to sergeant and shuffled off to the sleepy village of Sandford, Gloucestershire. He finds the local police service under Inspector Frank Butterman (Jim Broadbent) happy to generally do nothing as long as Sandford is competing for the Best Village award. Nicholas partners with Constable Danny Butterman (Nick Frost), the Inspector's son, and meets local supermarket owner Simon Skinner (Timothy Dalton) and other influential members of the Neighbourhood Watch Alliance. When a series of grisly "accidents" claim multiple lives, Nicholas is the only officer to believe a murderer is on the loose.
What Works Well: With Bad Boys II and Point Break as two favourite inspiration sources, this send-up of police action movies leverages all the cliches into over-the-top and mostly on-target comedy. Director Edgar Wright and his co-writer and star Simon Pegg deploy exaggerated violence and manic editing to also skewer traditional quaint English countryside attitudes. Pegg keeps a straight face as the way-too-serious cop who can never switch off, but humanity rises out of the carnage through the friendship he forges with Nick Frost's Danny Butterman. The supporting cast animates the pulse of a village with the darkest of underbellies.
What Does Not Work As Well: With focus meandering towards solving a slasher mystery, the running time drags on, and a couple of ultimately pointless chase scenes run out of breath. The all-guns-blazing final act leans more towards excessive action than wit, and is cluttered by a few too many barely defined side-characters.
Conclusion: Forget the gory deaths, find the missing swan.
All Ace Black Movie Blog reviews are here.
All Ace Black Movie Blog reviews are here.
I don't disagree with the criticism of this, but it's by far my favorite of the Cornetto Trilogy. There's just something about it that makes me laugh.
ReplyDeleteHot Fuzz and Shaun Of The Dead are both excellent. The World's End fell flat for me.
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