Hot Fuzz is the Best Movie in the “Cornetto Trilogy”
Choosing among Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz and The World’s End is an impossible task. We try it anyway.
Every movie in Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg’s “Cornetto Trilogy” is a masterpiece but the middle chapter, Hot Fuzz, is the masterpiece-iest of all.
Watch the video below for our take or read below for more!
Zombie comedy (or ZomRomCom as some like to call it) Shaun of the Dead rightfully became a classic and an amazing introduction to the comedic stylings of Wright, Pegg and Nick Frost for most American audiences. The World’s End closes out the “ultra-stylized genre movie comedy” trilogy perfectly with just the right amount of maturity, humor and self-reflection. Still, it’s the middle chapter Hot Fuzz that reigns supreme over them all.
Perhaps Hot Fuzz benefits from not having to be an introduction to the loosely-related trilogy or having to close it out. But really Hot Fuzz triumphs in its mastery over the cop movie genre its parodying and emulating. Hot Fuzz is the best movie in the trilogy because it parodies and satirizes action movie cliches as adeptly as it celebrates them.
Wright has famously said that early on in the writing process of the movie about mismatched cops, they came across a list of famous action movie cliches and then deliberately included every single one of them. This thorough attention to detail is both impressive and hilarious and it creates a movie that’s somehow both self-aware and completely sincere. Hot Fuzz best establishes the type of tightrope-walking tone that all of these Wright and Pegg movies strive to achieve.
The embracing of these cliches creates a movie both smart and undeniably fun. Pegg and co-star Nick Frost’s chemistry is perfect per usual and the combination of Pegg’s ultra type-A personality and Frost’s ne’er do well police chief’s son. The last act in particular works as film criticism and as a legitimately exciting action set piece in which every single citizen of this small English town seems to be armed to the teeth. It’s about as exciting and funny any 30-minute stretch of film has ever been.
Add in a host of hilarious, quotable lines and some amazing plot twists and you’ve got yourself a near-perfect movie.
Written by
TV Editor at Den of Geek and Television Critics Association member. Based in Cleveland, Ohio. Very upset about various sporting events.