Hot Fuzz

I need to track down a British person who’s seen Hot Fuzz. There’s a lot of surveillance in the movie, and to an American--at least, to a privacy-conscious American who’s a bit worried about the nanny-state surveillance society we’re barreling towards--it was present to an almost shocking degree. The idea of a whole room at the local police station dedicated to all the town’s surveillance cameras (and being watched over by a civilian neighborhood watch type, although I’m not sure if that makes it better or worse) was unsettling. I wonder if it registered with the average British moviegoer, or if it just seemed par for the course. Of course, there are such rooms in some American police stations, but on the whole we’re not quite as watched-over as they are, yet. It seemed as strange to me as a cop who didn’t want to get near a gun, which the movie also featured.

Also worth noting: the vile neighbo(u)rhood watch association in Hot Fuzz goes by the rather self-evident acronym of NWA. I couldn’t tell if they were actually going for these laughs, but seeing Brits yell back and forth about who NWA is out to get is true comedy.