Hot Fuzz is a bawdy and surprisingly gory comedy that savagely sends up police films and mad slasher flicks.  

Like Naked Gun, the film has an extremely high quotient of dizzyingly fast jokes and sight gags. Not all of them work, but this film probably still has more genuine laughs than all the films in the Scary Movie series combined.

Edgar Wright directed Hot Fuzz. He did an unexpectedly marvelous job on Shawn of the Dead, and this film reunites him with the scriptwriter and two of the actors from that film.  

Hot Fuzz doesn’t quite hit the high mark of that film, but it comes close. Wright is also scheduled to do a film about the diminutive superhero, Antman, and he did a mock trailer for the new Tarantino/Rodriquez exploitation film tribute, Grindhouse.  

The main character of Hot Fuzz is like a much more competent version of Barney Fife from the “Andy Griffith” series. Both are big city cops who go to small towns only to find that their techniques are seen as ridiculous by the more laid back small town cops. 

Nicholas Angel (Simon Pegg) is transferred from London to the sleepy, slow paced town of Sandford.  At first, Angel is completely humorless, and he has an arrest record 400% record higher than any other cop. He follows the letter of the law, and arrests all violators. 

On his first night in the town, Angel overdoes it right away. He arrests many under-aged drinkers in the local pub, and he also brings in an oafish drunk driver. The driver ends up being his boss’s son and Andy's new partner. 

The other cops are considerably more relaxed in how they administer the law than Angel. At first, he is appalled, but gradually both he and his fellow officers learn to eventually respect each other. He becomes more easy-going and they become more professional. 

The only true friend he makes right away is his partner, Danny (Nick Frost), who looks up to him. When Angel stumbles upon a conspiracy behind a series of horrendous killings, only Nick will believe him. But Nick is torn between his commitment to Angel and his commitments to the townies. 

The film is not afraid to go too low or offend people. One of the best scenes involves a senior citizen riding an electric wheelchair into battle with a couple of guns.

Hot Fuzz has an uneven script, but even when one joke fails, two or three good ones immediately follow.   It’s highly recommended for fans of slapstick comedy and puns. Most current American comedies are quite tame, timid, and stale in comparison.