Nick Frost (left) and Simon Pegg in a scene from the movie 'Hot Fuzz'. - Contributed photos

With Hot Fuzz, Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg do for buddy-cop action tales what they did for zombie flicks on Shaun Of The Dead - present a nice homage while tweaking the conventions and making jolly good fun of the genre's clichés.

Though longer than it needs to be and a bit draggy early on, Hot Fuzz packs a lot of hearty laughs and a few real guffaws as a hotshot London cop adjusts to life in a seemingly tranquil country town.

Pegg and co-star Nick Frost are proving themselves a terrific comic duo, Pegg the uptight straightman, Frost the loveable oaf. They're surrounded by an impressive supporting cast led by Jim Broadbent and including such action veterans as former James Bond, Timothy Dalton, Paul Freeman (chief villain of Raiders of the Lost Ark) and Edward Woodward (the original The Wicker Man and TV's The Equaliser).

Pegg plays Nicholas Angel, an all-round hero of the London police force who's both book-smart and street-smart, with an arrest record 400 per cent higher than any other cop in town.

Playing off the crime-thriller convention of the cop who must redeem himself after falling from grace, Wright and Pegg present a man who has done everything right and gets sent down to the minor leagues for his trouble.

Crime-free village

Exiled to the crime-free village of Sandford, Nicholas wallows in boredom under the command of cheery police Chief Frank Butterman, whose officers are a gang of dessert-munching layabouts.

The Sandford police force includes Frank's boorish son, Danny, a huge action-film fan who quickly comes to idolise Nicholas, figuring he's a real incarnation of the fearless, wisecracking cops he sees in the movies.

Bizarre deaths

Cop colleagues Frank Butterman (right) and Nicholas Angel take cover in 'Hot Fuzz'.

Nicholas gradually is introduced to the town's perky townsfolk, all cleverly assigned occupational names such as Weaver, Tiller and Reaper. The citizens include Timothy Dalton as a smiling but menacing store owner and such British acting veterans as Anne Reid ('The Mother') and Billie Whitelaw ('The Omen').

As locals begin dying in bizarre, gruesome ways, Nicholas becomes convinced a serial killer is stalking the town. His police colleagues chalk the deaths up to accidents and make Nicholas the butt of their jokes for his overzealousness.

Danny wants to believe in Nicholas, and the two slowly bond as friends and colleagues as they try to sort out what lies beneath Sandford's sleepy exterior.

The action in the big shoot-'em-up finale is not terribly well done; it's even a bit amateurish by big-studio standards. But you're not here for the action. Hollywood will dish out plenty of that this summer. What you get from Hot Fuzz is what you rarely see from Hollywood - something genuinely smart and silly at the same time, a film and film-makers that respect their characters, their audience and the genre at which they lovingly poke fun.