The movie I’m into more than any other right now, in the sense that I could basically watch it every night, is Hot Fuzz. Co-written and directed by Edgar Wright and co-written by and starring Simon Pegg (both of Shaun of the Dead fame), Hot Fuzz is an action/cop/buddy spoof that itself serves as a wonderful action/cop/buddy movie. Pegg plays Nicholas Angel, a go-getting London cop assigned to a sleepy country village because he’s making all the other big-city cops look bad with his work ethic. Angel immediately starts to smell a rat around Sandford (the small town), as townsfolk die in mysterious accidents.
The film posits a world where evil lies just beneath a veneer of sweetness, politeness, and hospitality. Hot Fuzz is certainly not the first story to suggest this (The Stepford Wives, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and every Rod Serling Twilight Zone episode come to mind), but it does it in a deliciously tongue-in-cheek way. If you like action/cop/buddy movies, or like to make fun of action/cop/buddy movies, then Hot Fuzz is for you.
Angel makes an interesting comment about the Law while explaining why he became a police officer: “I had to prove to myself that the law could be proper, and righteous, and for the good of humankind.” Almost a quote from the Bible! Paul (the Apostle…not anyone to do with this film) would largely agree. Of course, I imagine he’d want to clarify what Nicholas Angel meant by “for the good of humankind.”
Whereas Angel seems to take the Law as a prescription for a safe and pleasant society (while defending his rounding up of VERY small time criminals, he says that “geographic location shouldn’t figure into the enforcement of the law”), Paul would argue that the Law only serves to show us how short of it we’re falling (e.g. the law “don’t covet your neighbor’s swan” doesn’t actually serve to make us covet less, it only serves to show us the extent of our covetousness). So while Paul and Angel might agree that the Law is “for the good of humankind,” Angel might suggest that adherence to the Law will make the world a good place for humankind to live. It is, though, “for the common good” that Sandford has turned into Gomorrah. Paul would say that adherence to the Law is a fool’s errand, and it’s “goodness” comes in showing a failed humanity its need for a savior.
What say you? Do you find the most nefarious evils of the world hidden under things that look good? Or is this a movie convention, that the bad guy is always the one you least suspect? And how about the Law? Can it create the thing it requires? Or does your mom’s insistence that you not take a cookie almost compel your hand toward the jar?
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COMMENTS
3 responses to “What’s Goin’ On in the ‘Burbs? Hot Fuzz!”
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Hi Nick. Yeah, this is a REALLY fun lovie. I love it.
About the questions you raise… you say that St. Paul believes that the ONLY function of the Law is to condemn us as sinners. This is what Luther called the second use of the Law. But Luther also believed that the Law had a "first" or "civil" use which is to restrain bad behavior via police, the courts, jail, etc. (I.e. via punishment and the threat of punishment.)
Luther also considered that his understanding was scriptural — he saw himself as intepreting the Bible as a whole and Paul in particular.
Are you saying that Luther was mistaken in his understanding of Paul?
PS. There's a long Mockingbird thread from a while back (1/27/2009) that discusses this question (first and second use of the law) at some length. The thread was started about an article on "The Ongoing Battle Against Smoking." You can find it at:
http://mockingbirdnyc.blogspot.com/search?q=smoking
Hey Stamp –
You're perfectly right…there is a first use of the law (street lights, drinking age, etc.) Luther understood Paul (as far as this goes) correctly. All I meant to suggest was that the law could only turn Sandford into a wonderful place to live on the very surface, and that's all the law can do for us.
Great. Glad to hear we are on the same page there.
The only thing I'd add (and hopefully we are on the same page here as well) is that the "surface" achievement that the law's first use is intended for is not trivial and is indeed a good thing.
It's good (given that we live in a fallen world) to have communities where arson and theft and murder and so forth are illegal. That's a good thing. The first use is a blessing here.
One way that I think of the distinction is that the first use deals with Behavior (and is often effective at producing what it requires, though of course not always). But what the law is incapable of producing is a good HEART, and thus cannot advance us one bit toward being acceptable towards God (since he cares deeply about what goes on inside you). It's only use here would be to make us despair of our own righteousness.
So when you ask:
"And how about the Law? Can it create the thing it requires?"
I'd say It Depends. Behavior? It does a good job much of the time. Heart? Big zero.