Hot Fuzz (R)
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This is the second entry in the "Cornetto trilogy", in which none of the films are related to each other. It came out in 2007, but I didn't see it until 2023. At the time I'm writing this, it is one point lower on Rotten Tomatoes than the first entry (91% vs. 92%, so they're both really quite fresh). But actually, I only liked the first movie, but I loved this one. It's a bit of a slow build-up, though. For a large part of the movie I would have said it was just okay, maybe not even quite as good as the first movie. But by the last... I don't know what fraction of the movie, a quarter or a third or something like that... I thought it was bloody brilliant.

It begins with a London police officer named Nicholas Angel (Simon Pegg) getting a promotion to sergeant, and a deeply unwanted transfer to the town of Sandford. His superiors and coworkers in London don't like that he's a much better cop than they are, so they're getting rid of him. When he gets to Sandford, he's partnered with an enthusiastic constable named Danny Butterman (Nick Frost), who is the son of the local Inspector, Frank Butterman (Jim Broadbent). Things are pretty boring around town, until a string of murders starts. But no one except Nicholas seems interested in treating them as such. The prime suspect is a supermarket owner named Simon Skinner (Timothy Dalton), but he has an alibi. There are a lot of other characters in Sandford, whom I don't want to go to the trouble of naming or anything. But most of them are members of the Neighbourhood Watch Alliance (NWA), led by Tom Weaver (Edward Woodward, whom I completely failed to recognize somehow).

I really don't want to reveal any more of the plot, but it's a pretty funny comedy that eventually becomes an action movie, once Nicholas discovers the shocking truth behind the murders. (It's not what he first came to suspect.) It's also rather quirky, but I still felt like filing my review under "comedy" (as well as "mystery"). And I guess I don't know what else to tell you, without spoiling anything. But it's all just... wow.