Nicholas Angel (Simon Pegg) is London's best cop and it goes without saying he's good at his job. Actually, too good, his arrest record 400-percent higher than anyone else’s in the city’s police department. No two ways about it, he’s making everyone look bad, and the only thing the rest of the force can do is to promote him and then transfer their star enforcer someplace else so they can all get out of his very large shadow.

That someplace else is the sleepy backwater township of Sanford. They’ve been voted the best town in England, and with no crime rate at all to speak of the thought of living, let alone patrolling, there is enough to drive Angel insane.

But things in Sanford are not as sleepy and as quiet as they appear. After a series of “accidents” rocks the idyllic community, it becomes increasingly obvious many of this new officer’s old talents are in desperate need. Angel and his overeager partner Danny Butterman (Nick Frost) jump headfirst into action, unleashing big city justice on some small town thugs and just because they live in a place without crime doesn’t mean the law has taken a catnap.

The men behind Shaun of the Dead follow up that international romantic zombie comedy sensation with the giddily hysterical madcap action free-for-all Hot Fuzz. No cliché is left unturned, no mega-budget ‘80’s cops and robbers extravaganza left untouched, no death too gruesomely horrific for these gurus of populist satire to explode. The film is an invigorating blend of thrills, spills, shocks, awes, laughs, spit-takes, expletives, giggles and chortles, and for all those who thought the team’s last effort was a hit prepare yourself because this one is even better.

Written by Pegg and director Edgar Wright, there is so much to adore I almost don’t know where to begin. References to Tony Scott (and his brother Ridley), Richard Donner, Mel Gibson, Jerry Bruckheimer, Bruce Willis, Michael Bay and even Dario Argento abound, while tips of the hat to classic U.K. fare like The Wicker Man and the James Bond franchise are as frequent as an overweight drunkard ordering a pint of Guinness in a homely British pub.

All of this is beautifully cast. The iconic group of supporting players includes a former James Bond (Timothy Dalton), Indiana Jones’ arch nemesis (Paul Freeman), Satan’s nanny (Billie Whitelaw), a Moulin Rouge showman (Jim Broadbent), Zorro’s adversary (Stuart Wilson), a squid-faced pirate (Bill Nighy), an intergalactic hitchhiker (Martin Freeman) and even Robert McCall aka The Equalizer (Edward Woodward). Seeing these famous faces (just to name a few) is a real hoot, and the fact Wright and Pegg treat their arrival onscreen with such joyous malevolence just makes it all the more wonderful.

It must be noted that at a whopping 121-minutes Hot Fuzz is far too long to support its flimsy tongue-in-cheek storytelling. Also, some people are going to find the extreme gruesomeness of some of the deaths more than a bit off-putting. This has got to be the goriest slice of action cinema we’ve seen since a bad guy fell into some twirling helicopter blades in The Last Boy Scout or a terrorist got an ice spear shoved through his eyeball in Die Hard II. Italian horror lovers are going to eat all the ghoulish bloodletting up with a spoon, the rest of the audience sitting there getting sick to their collective stomachs.

Too bad for them, because for the rest of us this movie is a total kick in the pants. I laughed. I cringed. I even almost sighed in happiness during the requisite male bonding sessions (appropriately set to a crap-tacular double-bill of Point Break and Bad Boys II) between Angel and Butterman. Better, when the film finally exploded into cartoonishly comedic ultra-violence darn it all if it didn't suddenly become exciting, too, fits of giggles rapidly intertwined with shrieks of suspenseful delight the filmmakers deliriously manage to create.

It is almost funny that the best action film of the year so far would also be the one that lovingly mocks that very same genre with impudent glee. Length may be a problem, and the bloodletting might be just a wee bit much, but all-in-all the picture is a such a rollicking good time I seriously doubt many who see it are even going to care.

Hot Fuzz is a shell-shocked laugh riot of violence and satire. It is told with a lovingly intelligent and winkingly gleeful slight of hand written with a pen of acidic observation, layered to absolute perfection by moviemakers who know the genre both inside and out. Wright and Penn cement their status as crafty entertainers willing to tackle tiredly blasé genres and winningly spin them on their ears. Miss this one at your own peril.

Film Rating: êêê  (out of 4)