Oh, there you are! I need your opinion on my new word: parodomage. Sounds French, and therefore scholarly, right? I invented it to describe this growing breed of film that blurs the line between satire and reverence, lampooning the clichés of an overdone genre that everyone --- especially the filmmaker --- nonetheless adores, like the chopsocky Kung Fu Hustle, the noir-tinged Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, and the rom-zom-com Shaun of the Dead. Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg, the uneaten brains behind Shaun, have now turned their fondly mocking attention to the testosterrific American action flick and, with Hot Fuzz, call out Bruckheimer, Bay, et al., whilst giving them a violent run for their money.

Pegg stars as Police Constable Nicholas Angel, and through a series of montages (which I have never looked at in quite the same way since Team America), we learn that Angel is the best of London's finest. Alas, he's making the rest of the department look bad, causing his superiors --- played by a familiar troika of England's funniest --- to assign Angel a situation in pastoral Sandford, "the safest village in the country." So Angel bids farewell to his estranged ladyfriend (that's a cameoing Oscar-winner behind the CSI mask, by the way), packs up his Japanese peace lily, and heads for his latest post, where most of his idle co-cops find the über-vigilant Angel to be a dull wanker. Except one.

Suckled on Hollywood shoot-‘em-ups but blessed with all the agility of a glacier, the eager Danny Butterman (Nick Frost, Pegg's sidekick in Shaun) bombards his seemingly glamorous new partner with questions about big-city law enforcement ("Did you cook any fools?"), information he just may put to use if Angel's wildly ignorant colleagues ever reach a consensus about whether the residents of charming Sandford are actually murdering each other. Among the townsfolk either furthering or impeding the investigation are Danny's kindly dad Inspector Butterman (the essential Jim Broadbent), high-strung Neighborhood Watch president Tom Weaver (it's The Equalizer, Edward Woodward!), and slimy shop mogul Simon Skinner (one-time Bond Timothy Dalton, madly telegraphing as if he were Marconi himself).

But of course director Wright (he co-wrote the goofy, gory script with Pegg) isn't going to make it that simple for us. Though containing about 20 minutes and three more endings than is truly necessary, Hot Fuzz doesn't miss a beat as it ricochets from silly slapstick to British whodunit to gay-ish buddy picture and, finally, to a bullet ballet where even the least likely are strapped. Wright shoots the breakneck action at the intersection of Blasphemous (two police-issue boots to an old lady's face?) and Holy, with gunplay and high-speed pursuit accentuated by dizzying photography, slow motion, and fast edits, all of which continue to be rousing despite the obvious Velveeta factor. And when Danny turns Angel on to his favorite action touchstones --- Point Break and Bad Boys II, naturally --- you know you'll eventually be treated to audible gems like "This shit just got real" and "I'm gonna bust this thing wide open."

The easy chemistry between longtime collaborators Pegg and Frost fuels Hot Fuzz, with Pegg's by-the-book Angel playing straight man to Frost's naïve manchild Danny (or whoever else happens to be sharing the generous Pegg's frame, for that matter). The cast, which also includes In America's Paddy Considine as one of the hysterically crude Andys and The Mother's Anne Reid as doomed horticulturist Leslie Tiller, doesn't miss any opportunity to overact, in keeping with the film's total lack of subtlety. And if there were any buckets of fake blood left over from the Shaun shoot, they're gone now, each Sandford slaying more Grand Guignol than the last.

The awesome soundtrack consists of classics by proper English rock immortals like Dire Straits, the Kinks, the Crazy World of Arthur Brown, and the mighty T-Rex, as well as a worthy Yank by the name of Jon Spencer, who --- wait a second. Loud music? Explosions? Car chases? Stupid one-liners? Don't look now (and whatever you do, don't look outside), but it might be the unofficial start of the summer movie season! This means that anyone looking to give me feedback on my new word --- parodomage: learn it, love it --- can find me in line for Live Free or Die Hard. And thanks to Hot Fuzz, I'm not as ashamed as I should be.

Hot Fuzz (R), directed by Edgar Wright, opens Friday, April 20, at area theaters.