Hot Fuzz [2007] (English): A refreshingly comic action movie parody

Have you ever suffered reprimand for being over-competent?
Have you been transferred to a remote country-side village as a reward for your over-competence?
Did your girlfriend dump you because you are more in love with your work? And is she right
Is your new work-place too good to be true?
Have you ever felt that you are the only one who thinks something fishy is going on there, and no one believes you?

If yes, then you will identify with the protagonist of this movie, Nicholas Angel, played by Simon Pegg - a very competent and workaholic police officer (a.k.a. "Fuzz" in local slang). Too competent for his own good... Ditto for being a workaholic... The department rewards him for his good work by transferring him to a remote village in the "country". Its a nice little village, where crime is virtually unknown. For an ambitious and workaholic Fuzz from the City, this is a nightmare. The attitude of the Police department is laid-back and lax. The most challenging task he is entrusted is to track down a missing swan. Nothing is going well it seems. Until one day there is an accident that kills two people. But was it really an accident? Officer Angel believes not. But in a village where the "M" word has not been heard of for decades, no one will believe him... And the truth, as it turns out, is even more sinister than officer Angel had thought...

The movie hooked me right from the start. The logic of Angel's supervisors for transferring him is flawless. The reasons for his Girlfriend to leave him are not at all irrational. His introduction to the village and its folk, and his interactions with them is anything but cordial. 

There is another reason for the movie's quick pick-up. All these sequences are portrayed without "mincing the words" so to speak. Its a unique style employed by the movie-makers - they show quick short snippets of things happening, one after the other in quick succession, to convey an idea. For instance, Angel's journey from London to Sanford village is portrayed using little 2-3 second consecutive shots of him traveling in a taxi, then in a train, and then again in a cab... Due to this quick snappy portrayal of certain events that need not be prolonged unnecessarily, the movie runs along at a steady clip.

The mystery behind the deaths will reel you in. You will never guess who the suspects are. And their motives behind these crimes are so unbelievable that they sound utterly realistic and logical.

The only thing that robs points from this movie is the climax. This is where it mutates from a nice little comic but intricate murder mystery to an action parody. It was an utter let down for me. Even though the rest of the movie was pretty nice.

Hot Fuzz is the second part of the Flavours Cornetto Trilogy.

But don't let this little fact stop you from watching it, just because you have not watched the first part. The three parts are not related. In fact, apart from the facts that:

• they are all directed and co-authored by Edgar Wright
• they feature actors Simon Pegg and Nick Frost
• each of the movies afford the audience pure fun at the expense of a specific genre, and
• each one features in it a specific flavour of Cornetto

there is nothing else common between the three movies that form this Trilogy. So believe me, you are not missing out on anything if you watch this one without having watched its "prequel" (Shaun of the Dead). Nor does it leave any untied ends to be tied up in its "sequel" (The World's End). It is a "stand-alone" movie, thank you.

My Ratings: 2.5

World War Z [2013] (Eng): a zombie movie on a global scale

For me it started with 28 Days Later. There was something about the idea of the world and the life as we know it, being shot to hell, that sucked me in... Empty streets, abandoned houses, crashed lonely vehicles, not a being in sight... And add to that, the danger of your fellow humans gone wild, crazy and, technically dead... Zombies out to get you on the mean streets of a deserted city, chasing you down dark corridors of apartment buildings... It was your worst nightmare come true...

I lapped them all up. Right from Rec and Rec 2 to I am Legend and Frank Darabont's Walking Dead TV Series. Some of them were groundbreaking and stunning. Many others were just copy-paste jobs with hardly any inspired or original contributions to the genre.

World War Z does expand the horizons of the Zombie genre by portraying the zombie apocalypse on a global scale. Its does for zombie movies what 2012 did for natural disaster movies.

It is the story of a former United Nations investigator who is out with his family when the streets around him abruptly erupt into chaos. He manages to flee with his wife and two daughters as they try to survive the sudden outbreak of a rabies like disease (what a cliché) that turns a human bitten by an infected one into a frenzied biting zombie within seconds. He gets help and shelter from his former boss, a high-ranking official in the UN. His family is safe for now, but on one condition. He is reluctantly entrusted the task of accompanying a virologist and a team of soldiers, as the venture out into the midst of danger and chaos, in search for the origins of the disease, hoping to find a cure. Thus starts his perilous journey which will take him round the globe, in search for a possible cure to this apocalyptic disease.

Seriously speaking, story and concept-wise, there is hardly anything original about this one. Some of the ideas are almost preposterous. The plot and the story are too over-dramatic and unrealistic. And yet there are two things that make this movie worth watching at least once. Awesome visuals and breathtaking action sequences.

It portrays the zombie outbreak pretty nicely. Throngs upon throngs of frenzied infected zombies fill up the screen like hundreds of ants. The action is intense. The story roars ahead at breakneck speed, hardly allowing the viewer a moment to mull upon the ridiculousness of some of the ideas. Arial views of fallen cities and zombie-infested landscapes are visually stunning. An international cast of actors that ensure good acting that went waste thanks to an over-dramatic script.

If you don't mind switching off your brain and watching the movie for pure entertainment's sake, then you are in for a pretty intense joy ride. For me, the movie earns no points for realism and originality. But it succeeds to entertain pretty well.

My Rating: 2.0

V/H/S [2012] (English): a horror anthology with unutilized potential

This is an anthology of six unrelated horror short films, each one directed by a different director. Each story is depicted in found-footage format using the shaky camera-work technique.

The movie starts off with "Tape 56" directed by Adam Wingard. This one is used as a frame narrative, where the other 5 stories are shown within this as the central story. It shows the exploits of a group of criminals who record their exploits and post the videos on the net. Someone has hired them to break into a house and retrieve a VHS tape. The house belongs to some old guy. When they break in, they find him dead in a room with multiple TVs and VCRs. While the others search the house for any more VHS tapes, one guy has to sit in the room with the old mans dead body and go through the tapes available there. As the guy plays each tape, we are taken into the narrative of each of the other 5 stories. Needless to say, this story ends with a nice but predictable twist ending. Except for the short sequence in the basement, the story lacked much of a punch and on the whole, turned out to be just a simple filler between the other stories.

The first video the criminal guy from the frame narrative watches is "Amateur Night" directed by David Bruckner. A trio of young guys have recently bought a spectacles with a camera in it (Google Glass???). They ask the most nerdy guy among them to wear it. Then they go have some fun in the bar. There they pick up a couple of girls and return to their apartment to spend a night of obvious debauchery. But they are in for a nasty surprise. This story had potential. But they ruined it for me by putting in way too much gore. Not to mention it was sexually explicit. And the camerawork was at times too shaky. But I give points for the interesting twist at the end.

The next story is called "Second Honeymoon" directed by Ti West. I have watched his famous movies The Innkeepers and The House of the Devil, and I enjoyed them both. So I had great expectations from this one. But I was quite disappointed. Apart from a bit of suspense and a very unexpected and original ending, the short lacked entertainment for me.

"Tuesday the 17th" (sounds like Friday the 13th? You bet it does) directed by Glenn McQuaid is about a bunch of two guys and two gals who visit a lake deep in the woods. This one is a pure no-brainer that lacks originality, but certainly adds the thrills (if you prefer slasher movies, albeit with a possible supernatural twist)

"The Sick Thing That Happened to Emily When She Was Younger" directed by Joe Swanberg has a pretty original but utterly preposterous story. It does have some good thrills. But overall, I would rate it as average.

The last one is "10/31/98" by a group of directors who call themselves Radio Silence. It is about a bunch of guys who visit a friend's house for the Halloween party. But it seems that there is no one in the house... Or is there? Personally, I think this is the best one among them all. Its your good old-fashioned horror tale. Where it lacks in originality, it makes up for in suspense, thrills, scares and the supernatural.

The beauty of any short film is that it does not beat round the bush. It delivers the goods quickly without the overhead of character or story building. And that is its drawback too. It is too short for explanations. One is left to assume certain things, concentrating more on delivering the gist of the story and the action involved. The same is true for these short films. They deliver the punch pretty effectively. But please don't go around looking for explanations or background stories.

These short films do aim to push the boundaries of the found footage horror genre. And to some extent they do succeed. For there is a certain uniqueness in each of the story, that deserves appreciation. But somewhere, I think, it failed to deliver the stories to their full potential. May be the direction could have been a bit better. Same can be said for some of the scripts. Overall, it is a case of hit-and-miss, where some stories are good, while others are disappointing.

Some of the stories have sexually explicit scenes, which is a bit of a turn off. Also some of them show way too much blood and gore. Call me a prude if you will, but according to me, a good horror story need not take help of unnecessary sexual scenes or excessive blood and gore in order to entertain.

On the whole, this one is worth watching once, but not more than that.

My Ratings: 2