Hot Fuzz (Edgar Wright, 2007)

An interesting mirror of Pegg and Wright's previous feature, Shaun of the Dead. That movie is more interesting to me, now, as it compares with Hot Fuzz than as a piece of its own. Both take similar comedy formulas, involving Pegg's growth and change over a two hour comedy away from outlandish working world extremes (listless slacker in Shaun, semi-fascistic workaholic in Hot Fuzz) and towards a happier, more psychologically healthy middle ground.

My preference for Hot Fuzz comes from two better-handled aspects that both share. While Shaun concerns itself with the city life of England, wrapping working-class life in invisibly-veiled metaphors for the walking dead and acting as though people who buy into working at their jobs and being adults are obnoxious douchebags (Peter Sarafinowicz more or less reprising his role on Spaced), Hot Fuzz treats its depiction of Pegg as a workaholic cop with a bit more interesting ambivalence. True, it doesn't shy away from his status as something of a fascist, seeing the rules as unbendable procedures that were not created by flawed human reasoning, but his ideas about these previous concretes soften without ever completely losing the dedication and ingenuity he brings to his job. Shaun, meanwhile, spends much of its energy on the titular character's status as a someone who lacks said ingenuity and uprightness, while never really suggesting that the characters were anything but absolultely correct about the previous opinion that supposedly "dead-end" jobs should be mocked and scorned.

The other aspect that Hot Fuzz handles better is the impetus for Pegg's change of character. In both films Pegg's character is dumped by his girlfriend, then dumped into a strange and discomforting new world and forced to adapt. But unlike Shaun the happy ending in Hot Fuzz does not arrive with rekindled love, nor with the other stereotype of finding a new girl who appreciates the new you. Instead Nicolas Angel gains a bromance-type friendship with Nick Frost, but also a camaraderie and working compromise with his other fellow police officers. I appreciate nearly any movie that can start off with heartbreak, but doesn't have to resort to romance as the only possible way to learn from that experience.

Also the satire of weirdo upper-class ideas of elaborately manicured neighborhoods and icy perfection is much more hilarious than the artsy classism of the aforementioned working-class snobbery Shaun evinces.