Best "Underrated Movie" of the Year.

Here's a movie most people would miss, so if you are reading this, please don't miss it.

Hot Fuzz begins with a top London cop being promoted to sergeant and reassigned to the countryside for no reason other than he made the rest of the department looked bad. The village Sandford is a model village with extremely low crime rate and this is bad news for Nicholas Angel as he is totally commited to enforcing the law. So what do a hardcore top cop to do when everybody seems to be obeying the law and the worst crime in the village is the occasional grafitti?

It doesn't make thing easier that he has a partner whose impression of law enforcement in the city comes form the many action movies he seen. On top of that, there is the very active Neighbourhood Watch Association who keeps a close eyes on everything that goes on in the village. The police officers there have practically nothing to do. While Angel tried to adapt, and his partner continued to remained unprofessional and unserious about his job, it soon became clear that there is more going on in the village than meets the eyes (I know, Transformer fever. Forgive me). Though the village is low in crime rate, it does has an incredibly high rate of accidents.

Angel began to suspect that there is a murderer at loose and this murderer is cleverly disguising the murder as accident. With scantly any support from the local police force, he set out to investigate but the murderer always seems to be one step ahead of him.

Of course he solved the mystery in the end, this is a movie after all. While this movie poked fun on other movie for laugh, it does so brilliantly, unlike most of the slapstick movie we find nowaday. And though one would enjoy this movie most if one is familiar with cop-buddy films and the typical style of such film, there is enough effort in parts of the makers that others unfamiliar with this genre would still get the jokes. I saw neither Bad Boys II nor Point break, the two most satired films in this movie but I still laugh at its every reference, thanks to the film successful attempt to fill us in on the scenes.

When I watched this, Duncan and Suet were watching it for the second time. The first time around, both of them, together with another friend were the only ones laughing as the rest of the patrons do not appeared to get the joke. Brilliant as it is, this is one of those film that will only bring in mediocre blockbuster success along with a small but strong fanbase. Sadly, people nowaday prefer more in your face and obvious brand of comedy the likes of slapstick Scary Movie and its other incarnation. I admitted the first was quite good because it was unexpected and fun but the following sequel were just in bad taste in my humble opinion.

And hell, think I posted this review a little late since the movie is no longer showing in the theater. Go get the (original) DVD.