YMMV / Hot Fuzz

• Accidental Aesop:
  • People do operate on Insane Troll Logic, and accepting that possibility can make taking them down easier. Nick is baffled that all the murders happened because the NWA wanted to win Best Village of the Year and believes they need to kill anyone who threatens that status quo. As he later tells Reverend Shooter, he knows the difference between right and wrong, unlike the NWA.
  • When confronting a group of dangerous criminals, don't arrive alone and certainly don't expect that they'll let you arrest them peacefully. Nick goes Oh, Crap! that he Didn't Think This Through and Danny has to fake Nick's death to get him out of town and away from the guns. Much later, he learns from this and works with the other cops to take down the NWA.
  • There is no such thing as perfection, and vying for it at the expense of everything else will leave you perpetually disappointed. Nicholas alienated everyone he knew because of his inability to switch off. Sandford trying to create the "perfect" village led them to murder people for the most minor reasons, like having a tacky home.
  • Fascists aren't motivated by economic anxiety. They're motivated by a hatred of people who are different from them. Nicholas initially thinks the killers are motivated by the fear of economic competition. However, he eventually realizes that they don't really care about that and they only killed people they found "imperfect."
• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Was Reverend Shooter yelling "Jesus Christ!" as a blasphemous statement, or was he actually desperately calling out to Jesus to save him? And for that matter, does Reverend Shooter genuinely believe in God, or is he just using his religion to ease his conscience? On one hand, he’s enough of a Christian to the point that he chose to be a man of the cloth, on the other hand, he’s also a member of what is effectively a cult that has its own religious system separate from Shooter's religion.
  • How much of Lurch's crimes were out of his own malice, as opposed to blindly doing what Skinner told him? When Nicholas asks him if killing people is really what he wants, Lurch responds with "Yarp" (Lurch's way of saying yes). Heck, we don't even know if he meant it when he said yes or if he's only saying yes to avoid Skinner's scorn. The fact that he cries when taken into custody, seemingly because he does not understand what's happening, muddies these interpretations of Lurch further.
  • Did Mrs. Butterman really kill herself because Sandford lost the "Village of the Year" contest, or is that just how Frank rationalizes it?
  • As for Joyce Cooper angrily calling Nicholas Angel a "fascist", was she simply being a hypocrite, meaning it as a Meaningful Echo, or was she trying to ease her conscience?
  • Leslie Tiller's exact moral alignment is a source of some debate. Is she completely oblivious to the crimes of her fellow NWA members and only included in their legitimate activities due to her gardening skills? Is she privy to the murders, but guilt-ridden and desperate to get out of Sanford the first chance she gets? Or is she an unrepentant murderer who only wants to leave Sanford for her personal convenience and enrichment?
  • If Leslie was involved why would the killer conceal their identity? If Leslie knew the truth about the murders she would know that the NWA use those black cloaks when they’re about to strike. Keep in mind that they chose the moment that they knew Leslie would be closing her shop. They had no way of knowing that Nicholas would be there.
• Aluminum Christmas Trees: "Model Villages" are not entirely uncommon in small British towns, and would almost be a requirement for a place trying to win "Village of the Year."
• Catharsis Factor:
  • The Final Battle with the NWA is pretty sweet. Sandford's police force has become a competent fighting force and is taking down the murderous goons who misled them. With the cliche action tropes people love to boot.
  • After seeing Simon Skinner brutally killing several innocent people in cold blood, all while showing no remorse with smug glee, seeing him slip over and having his jaw impaled with the pointy tip of a model of a church and then being arrested is an incredibly satisfying and well deserved fate for such a murderous scumbag.
• Crosses the Line Twice:
  • Simon Skinner getting his chin impaled on the spire of a model church: gross and disturbing. Simon then whining in pain, asking for ice cream and getting his mugshot taken with it still there?: hilarious.
  • Nicholas finding out the NWA are a group of killers? Terrifying. Finding out they killed people for minor flaws over an unimportant contest and declaring it was "THE GREATER GOOD"? Absurdly funny.
  • Angel finding the corpses of the NWA's victims is pretty frightening and worthy of a slasher movie. However, finding the corpse of the Living Statue over-acting his own death is just too intentionally ridiculous to keep the horror going.
    Butterman: [voiceover] A GREAT BIG BUSHY BEARD!
  • Taking out James Reaper's old mother with a jump kick to the face also qualifies.
  • Tim's death is this mixed with Nausea Fuel and Nightmare Fuel. It's Nicholas' reaction that mixes the three.
  • It's overshadowed by the fact that is a massive Oh, Crap! moment (it happens in the police station) followed by a massive Tear Jerker (Danny's apparent death) but really: Tom getting blown up by a goddam sea-mine. The thing had remained stored and forgotten by everyone until that moment, a comically catastrophic case of Brick Joke.
• Cry for the Devil: Frank Butterman has spent years either orchestrating or outright committing the murders of many innocent people all for the superficial goal of helping Sandford maintain its title of "Village of the Year", something he almost shoots his own son for! It’s easy enough to hate him… until you remember that he was once a By-the-Book Cop like Nicholas when his whole world came crashing down when his wife killed her self after a failed bid to nab the aforementioned award! While you’re unlikely to find anyone who isn’t relieved to see him get his comeuppance at the end don’t be surprised either when you find audiences getting a little misty eyed over his situation.
• Ending Fatigue: While the big shootout at the end is a tribute to cop movies, it can seem like an Overly Long Gag to some. Then, after the shootout, we are treated to the station exploding, a graveside scene, and back in action. While the fatigue might not have been intentional, the producers note in the commentary that the effect was; they were partly influenced by Bad Boys II, and particularly the moment where it all seems to be ending, but then Martin Lawrence declares "This shit just got real," and the movie keeps on going. It is, of course, down to the individual viewer whether this was a wise thing to be inspired by.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Wannabe Intrepid Reporter Tim Messenger is killed halfway through the movie, but has a decent fanbase for being quirky and bumbling, yet earnest, as well as having the Hidden Depths to becomes suspicious about some of the villains before Nicholas.
• Evil Is Cool: While he's not the leader of the NWA per se, Skinner really makes being a murderer so debonair. Being played by a very-against-type Timothy Dalton certainly helps.
• Fan-Preferred Cut Content: The various deleted scenes following the "hoodies" are well-liked, and most fans agree that there are multiple good reasons they should have been kept. Those scenes set up how they help Nicholas in the climax, provide more Foreshadowing about how there can be a group of identically-dressed miscreants working together and make the NWA seem even more creepy with their willingness to target a member's grandson.
• Fountain of Memes: The movie is immensely quotable. Repeat even one line from the movie anywhere on the internet and you'll be sure to get another reference in response.
• Genius Bonus:
  • Sandford is the name of the fictional town traditionally used in UK police training exercises.
  • The Andys' surnames, Wainwright and Cartwright, are funnier if you know that "wain" is an obsolete synonym for "cart."
  • The twins at the front desk are always reading Iain Banks and Iain M. Banks respectively. This is actually the same author, who used his middle initial to distinguish his science fiction from his other work.
  • The NWA's motto, "bonum commune communitatis," means "the common good of the community" (or less literally "The Greater Good"), in keeping with their "values."
  • Sandford sounds like Stepford. As in The Stepford Wives, another story about a seemingly healthy community whose residents commit barbaric acts in the name of their idea of perfection. Ironically, despite Stepford's husbands being abusive murderers who Kill and Replace their wives, Frank loves his late wife so much that he is driven to honor her legacy of a perfect Sandford through murder.
  • The NWA is shown to have a surveillance system. England is one of the surveilled countries with a high number of cameras per capita. This also reflects Nineteen Eighty-Four, a dystopia that makes every effort to suppress "problematic individuals".
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Angel's mistaken belief that Skinner was behind all the murders out of fear for the local Somerfield is a bit sadder now that Somerfield no longer exists - it ceased operations and was absorbed into the Co-op in 2011.
  • The fact that the villains are Neighbourhood Watch members who murder townspeople for minor imperfections that reflect badly on the town eerily anticipates the death of black teenager Trayvon Martin at the hands of Neighbourhood Watch captain George Zimmerman in Florida in 2012, under circumstances that remain murky. The killing, and especially Zimmerman's acquittal the following year due to entering a successful self-defence plea, became one of the inaugural incidents of a period of enormous political turbulence that would dominate American culture during the latter half of the '10s. For bonus points, among the people marked for death by the cult are a group of teenagers who loiter around in hoodies - the exact article of clothing Martin was wearing at the time of his death and which became a symbol of those who felt Zimmerman's acquittal was unjust. For extra bonus points, the Florida town's name was Sanford, one letter away from Sandford.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Simon Pegg is portrayed as a straightforward action hero suffering from a case of Wrong Genre Savvy (at least for the first half). It's therefore amusing to note how after his film, his nerdy character in Mission: Impossible III Took a Level in Badass for the rest of that franchise.
  • Olivia Colman's subsequent career choices have produced a lot of these moments.
    • Watching the film can be a rather different experience after seeing Colman as a deadly serious cop character in Broadchurch.
    • "Nothing like a bit of girl on girl." Colman would later win an Oscar for playing a character in a three-way lesbian relationship in The Favourite.
    • Colman's character is called Sgt. Thatcher, in keeping with many Sandford characters having simple names derived from various professions (see Tiller, Skinner, Cartwright, Wainwright...). Clearly also a reference to her international breakthrough playing Margaret Thatcher's daughter Carol in The Iron Lady... or so you might think, except that Hot Fuzz actually came out four years before that movie.
    • Later on in her career, Colman would play someone opposed to Margaret Thatcher.
  • P.I. Staker has a problem with a bird. Fast forward to 2011...
  • In his Motive Rant, Frank Butterman says that, "Whatever the cost, we would make Sandford great again." Especially given the reactionary motive of the villains in seeking to preserve an idealized image of Sandford as a beacon of bucolic English traditionalism.
  • Nowadays, Rory McCann is best known for playing the brother of a hulking brutish monster of a man with limited speaking skills.
  • Similarly, Paddy Considine would go from the apathetic-but-ultimately heroic DC Andy Wainwright to a very layered and serious portrayal of a king.
• Jerkass Woobie: Michael. Yes, he was part of the NWA, but it seems like he didn't really understand what he was doing. His mugshot at the end shows him crying.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Pictures or animated GIFs of Angel saying "Get Out!!" are used as a reaction to terrible puns on sites such as Imgur.
  • Yarp!, a reference to the only thing Lurch can say. And by extension, "Narp!" from when Nicholas attempted to impersonate him.
  • Repeating "The greater good" any time you hear the phrase, in reference to the Catchphrase of the NWA (which has been murdering people "for the greater good"). Whenever it's spoken in the film, someone always echoes it.
  • "Shut it!" A frequent response to the above, even on This Very Wiki.
  • Gifs of Danny reloading his shotgun in the Somerfields while saying "Shame!" has started to catch on for jokes about needing to turn to violence once diplomacy (and/or stealth) a) have failed; or b) were only given a token attempt because people wanted to get violent quickly. Usually in reference to video games or D&D.
  • The line "We will make Sanford great again" is unexpectedly popular these days, for obvious reasons.
  • No luck catching them X's then?
    • It's just the one X, actually.
• Moral Event Horizon: Frank and the members of the NWA are revealed to have crossed it several years before when they started killing people they saw as the most minor of threats to Sandford's image and could deprive them of its "Village of the Year" title. This even includes killing children if they have to.
• Nausea Fuel:
  • Tim Messenger's death. Just... ew.
  • Mr. Skinner impaling his chin on a toy church spire is also pretty gruesome.
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • The reveal of the NWA's conspiracy itself. Had their motivation been over money or power, the movie would have been nothing more than a basic crime thriller featuring typical bad guys. However the NWA's main reason for murdering people is so petty that it makes them look a lot more sociopathic, and the cult-like vibes during their meetings certainly added to the creepy factor.
    • In particular, the sheer overwhelming pettiness of the murders is chilling. We see people killed for making a minor error in a newspaper, for being a bad actor and for having an annoying laugh. Dozens of people, if not more, killed over absolutely nothing whatsoever.
  • The victims' deaths, especially Tim Messenger's, who gets impaled through the skull by a falling turret.
  • The scene where Angel discovers the dead bodies in the crypt. Crosses into dark comedy territory following the reveal of the Living Statue's corpse, who's still posing with a silly expression.
• One-Scene Wonder:
  • Did you know that Peter Jackson is in the movie, uncredited? He's in for all of 2 seconds, stabbing Nicholas in the hand dressed as Father Christmas.
  • Cate Blanchett is also uncredited, appearing as Angel's ex-girlfriend Janine. She's only in one scene, and since she works in forensics, you can only see her eyes and hear her voice.
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • Michael is played by none other than Rory McCann, which is quite a surprise to those who know him more as Sandor Clegane from Game of Thrones.
  • To a smaller extent, Alice Lowe, who plays Tina ("Manager's office, Mister Skinnerrrrrrr...") also got some increased recognition for the Wright-produced comedy Sightseers (which she wrote and starred in), the cult horror-comedy Prevenge (which she wrote, directed and starred in whilst heavily pregnant no less) and Black Mirror: Bandersnatch (as Dr. Haynes). Just before this, she'd also been one of the leads in Garth Marenghis Darkplace.
  • Decades later, Paddy Considine would finally join this list with his breakthrough portrayal of King Viserys I in the Game of Thrones prequel House of the Dragon.
• Special Effect Failure:
  • Some of the blood squirts are clearly done with distracting CGI.
  • A minor case — during the car chase towards the end, some of the interior shots of Nick and Danny in the police cruiser don't have the actual background inserted, you can see the green screen. Since the shots go by rather quickly and the surrounding of the scene was filled with green trees already, it's barely noticeable.
• Spiritual Adaptation: Hot Fuzz can be seen as an episode of Midsomer Murders directed by Michael Bay.
• Values Dissonance:
  • A small detail that's lost on non-British viewers is that in the UK, it is illegal to kill swans. Watching the culprits trying to avoid hitting the swan was funny enough, knowing this makes it funnier.
  • Frank's usage of the word "gypsy" during the NWA meeting is considered a racial slur in America but is acceptable in the United Kingdom.^note It is the legal term for the country’s long-standing Romani minority, while “Roma” is used for more recent Romani migrants from Eastern Europe. However the way Frank uses it makes it clear he is using it as a slur.
• Vindicated by History: Hot Fuzz did quite well in the UK box office in 2007, but did poorly in the US due to being released around the same time as Epic Movie. But once it was brought to DVD and Blu-Ray, it has become very popular in the US as well as the UK.
• The Woobie: All of the victims to some extent are this, but none more so than the teenagers killed just for acting like teenagers! Even worse is the fact that most of their shenanigans were encouraged by the NWA!

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