Edgar Wright with his 2017 film
Baby Driver shows that he can make some awesome clean action if he wants to. And yet watching his 2007 film
Hot Fuzz you feel like something isn't quite
wright. The camera is too shaky and the editing is too quick. Is he trying to "hide something"? No! He simply imitates
Michael Bay, that's all.
The film even has a scene where the two main characters played by
Simon Pegg and
Nick Frost are watching specifically
Bad Boys II. And where a specific shot ( Michael Bay's signature rotating shot ) is shown in full glory. And the funny thing is, the plot of the film is constructed in such a way, that when
Martin Lawrence says "shit just got real", it references something in
Hot Fuzz itself. Obviously Edgar Wright recreates the shot itself later in the film. Like come on...
But the funny thing is, while
Hot Fuzz is mostly a parody of Michael Bay stylistically, it is also a parody of
Tony Scott. Wright uses Tony's signature editing techniques for the montage scenes. It is also a parody of
John Woo, with the shots where the main characters fly in with two guns. I didn't notice much pigeons in the film. But there is a swan. Maybe Edgar Wright is trying to make a British kind of John Woo joke of sorts. There are
Eli Roth techniques: stupidly fucking gory gore and something resembling the kids gang from the
Hostel movies. It references traditional Hong Kong cinema techniques with things like crash zoom and alike which
Quentin Tarantino is known to like to use. There is a reference to
Jan de Bont, in a form of a car that is jumping over the camera, which de Bont did in his film
Speed 1994. There are references to
Steven Spielberg, specifically the way some of the scenes are built with dolly shots on the faces. Some of the film has references to the classic buildup sequences by
Sergio Leone. I'm pretty sure I've missed them, but the film has to have references to
Ridley Scott and
James Cameron somewhere ( I've got a theory about it ). There is a presence of
Peter Jackson in a form of a little cameo. I don't know if Wright also referenced something of Jackson's style. And last, but not least, Wright also heavily references the work of
Kathryn Bigelow ( one of the former wives of James Cameron ) who directed the 1991 film
Point Break which is also directly shown in the movie.
The theory of why I think there should be a reference to at the very least something by Ridley Scott, has to do with the supporting cast. Or specifically with the other police-officers shown in the film. We have mostly a male cast, with one police-officer being a lady played by
Olivia Colman. I think it is possible to imagine a possibility where it is possible that Olivia's character might possibly represent a sort of possible reference to director Kathryn Bigelow. In which case, I suppose, it is possible to suppose that supposedly Simon Pegg's character is Michael Bay and Nick Frost's character is... I don't know... maybe Peter Jackson, or something. And then the two Andy's
Paddy Considine and
Rafe Spall should represent the two Scotts, Ridley and Tony... Or it is possible that I suppose too much.
If that supposed possibility is indeed possible, it is also possible to suppose that there is possibility that the message of the film in question is possibly about respecting Michael Bay and female directors like Kathryn Bigelow. Think about it. We start the movie with the entire police-force ( sorry "service" ) taking Simon Pegg's character non-seriously, while he is a bit hardcore. And we also start with the police-officers in question referring to each other as "police-men", which kind of sort of excludes the one police-lady on the force ( sorry "service" ). And then by the end, as we get through some rather good Bayhem! imitation the other officers start to respect both Simon Bay ( or Michael Pegg ) and start giving considerations to the police-lady, by adopting the phrase "police-officer". Before we get the much needed only explosion that the film budget could afford.
Being an utterly utter cinematic expression of absolute cinema,
Hot Fuzz possibly remains one of the supposed best comedic parodies, the comedic parodies genre possibly has to offer. And yet while the film is a parody, it also works on its own, as a part of the genre it supposedly parodies. Edgar Wright is not making fun of Michael Bay. He embraces Michael Bay. He makes a Michael Bay picture of his own... Possibly, of course.
Supposedly Happy Hacking!!!
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