They had me at “From the guys who brought you Shaun of the Dead.”
Nicholas Angel is the Supercop on London’s Metropolitan Police Force. He has a four hundred percent higher arrest record than anyone else and he can do everything a cop needs to better than anyone else. Needless to say, everyone on the force hates him — he’s making them look bad. So Angel gets shipped out to the picturesque village of Sandford, the sort of place that wins Village of the Year awards and where nothing ever happens. Or…does it?
Angel immediately starts applying his Supercop ways to a town where the biggest problem appears to be a seriously bad production of Romeo and Juliet. Angel’s new partner is Danny Butterman, a shlubby guy who’s the son of the town’s amiable police captain. He’s also got a serious jones for American cop movies, like Bad Boys II and Point Blank, and he’s wondering what it’s like to be a Supercop, guns blazing, taking down criminals. Needless to say, he’s gonna find out.
The movie manages to be a fun parody of American cop movies and quaint British villages all at the same time. The third act, which involves more guns and ammo than have probably ever existed in Great Britain (including pre-peace settlement Northern Ireland), is utterly hilarious. I loved Shaun of the Dead and this is a great followup — however Edgar Wright (writer and director), Simon Pegg (writer and star), and Nick Frost (star) put these insane things together, it works great.