If one took an Ealing Studios comedy from the 1950's and mixed it up with a cliche-ridden violent American cop drama you would have something akin to "Hot Fuzz". Simon Pegg plays Nicholas Angel, a super Type-A London policeman who gets transferred to a small country town in Gloucestershire to get him to decompress (and stop making the rest of "The Met" look bad by his overzealousness in catching and booking bad guys. )
Once exiled, he is teamed up with bumbling PC Dan Butterman (Nick Frost) a small town flatfoot whose main knowledge of police work comes from an absurdly extensive DVD collection of action movies in his closet. At first it looks as if our big city copper will die from boredom.
But something is amiss in quaint little Stamford.
The big wheels in town have secrets, secrets that get people knocked off in grisly fashion. And the local Chamber of Commerce group wants their cute little burg to be named "The Best Village in England" badly. Really badly.
The film is funny enough that you don't have seen all the "Dirty Harry"-type police melodramas to enjoy this one. Jim Broadbent plays the local top constable, and Timothy Dalton looks twice as comfortable playing the sinister over-the-top bad guy in this one then he ever did as James Bond.
