Blood, gore and laughs. A socially horrifying comedy film directed by Edgar Wright for the greater good
"Nicholas Angel: When's your birthday?
Underage Drinker: confidently 22nd of February.
Nicholas Angel: What year?
Underage Drinker: Every year."
—
Nicolas Angel, a highly proficient London bobby played by
Simon Pegg who also co-wrote the screenplay, is promoted to sergeant and transferred to a little village in the
West Country of England (it's actually filmed in
Wells, Somerset, to his great dismay. He quickly gets a hint that not all is well by his city-trained policing standards (beginning with schoolkids drinking in the pub and culminating with the arrest of a drunk driver, who turns out to be a police officer). The following day he meets the rest of the police officers, whose boss encourages him to change his thinking because how they run things is all for "the greater good") As he begins o meet other members of the community his sense of unease ramps up, more so as two of the local amateur dramatics group are killed in a bizarre and bloody crash. He immediately suspects murder, to the dismay of everyone else.
Despite the mayhem and his disturbance over the locals' prioritising good crime statistics over law and order, he befriends the son of the police chief, Danny (played by Nick frost), despite the fact that he was the drunk driver he'd arrested on his first night. Danny is a big film fan, obsessed with American police action films and disappointed that his life as an officer doesn't reflect the Hollywood vision of police life. Angel tries to instil good police values into Danny but grows increasingly frustrated as Danny doesn't seem to hear him. Nonetheless their relationship deepens despite the village being plagued by other mysterious deaths, which Angel ascribes to murder despite resistance from all the other officers.
Despite the mocking from his colleagues and boss, Angel continues to investigate the "murders", uncovering what appears to be a conspiracy set in motion by the Neighbourhood Watch Alliance. The deeper he digs, the clearer it seems, and after several more deaths it culminates in his crashing a meeting of the cult-like Alliance and his discovery of the truth as well as a cache of bodies. Determined to solve the several murders, he tries to enlist Danny's help, but Danny is still under his father's influence and declines, although he does enable Angel to escape, allowing for a brilliant and unexpected end to the film.
i can't help but draw a comparison with The league of Gentlemen. horrifying characters in a disturbing but comically dystopian rural England. but it's all or the greater good, of course. Wright's direction is perfect. Watching the film over, I started to see the subtle foreshadowing and setup for the whole. The juxtaposition of peaceful rural life and Danny's hollywood-driven vision leads to one of the best and unexpected action finales I have ever seen.
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jet-Poop points out that it's a send-up of 1970s cult/Satanism horror movies, and on reflection I am inclined to agree. it's socially horrifying rather than anything else. Horrific in the sense that the original UK version of The Office was horrifying. It's socially awkward to the point of creepiness. There's a lot of depth to this great film and I feel that I can't do justice to it, you have to see it for yourself; it works on so many levels that I can't even begin to write about them. The sheer brilliance of the comedy is unmatched; Pegg and Frost play off one another with touching brilliance, supported by Wright's genius direction. It seems to be a far cry from wright's Shaun of the Dead, but is connected by many callbacks as well as the Pegg/Frost duo.
$ xclip -o | wc -w
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