Simon Pegg, Hot Fuzz and Priceless

Simon Pegg and Priceless.
Simon Pegg is not Priceless, but is meant to be funny. Run Fat Boy Run might have been funny if you were…and I can’t think of the right word here. If you were drunk, daft or Peggless, which probably involves a mixture of all three. Simon Pegg’s big breakthrough film was Shaun of the Dead. That got him noticed and namechecked by among others Tarrantino and it brought him an audience. Hot Fuzz, ITV 4, was packed with the cream of British comedy playing supporting roles. It was a showcase of talent. Unlike Run Fat Boy Run there were one or two good lines. I just don’t get Simon Pegg.

Audrey Tautou I get, but unfortunately I don’t get. She’s so beautiful it almost hurts your eyes to look at her. For Art I had to suffer. She is Priceless. It is no surprise that Gad Elmeleh stakes his all to have another passionate fling with her. Unfortunately, that is not very much as he’s only a waiter/dog walker/barperson and general dogsbody at a Grande Hotel and not the multimillionaire she believed him to be. Their liaison has cost her everything that she has been working for, a safe and pampered existence as the wife of a much older man. She does not hesitate to make Gad suffer, booking into the best hotels and shopping for gifts that do look good on her, but then again so would bin-bags. She leaves Gad deep in debt with the threat of prison for fraud to hook up with another fish. But Gad finds his saviour in a richer older woman that pampers him. They are still in the same hotel and she tutor him in ways of getting more gifts. He shows off his new diamond encrusted watch and she swoons. The have little tete a tetes away from their respective keepers and memorably a night out on the new toy, a scooter that has been bought for Gad.

Audrey repeats the mistake she made the first time and lies too long on the beach. She gets caught; he is not. Gad wankles her an invite to a upmarket soiree and she asks him for his help, to play a prince playboy and entice the competition away from the old man that she’d nearly married in the opening scenes. This works too well. Gad sacrifices his paymaster for her needs and just as Audrey begins to hook in the older man she realizes it’s not him she wants-it’s Gad, by Gad and it is him she wanted all along.

Now, if I were a rich billionaire I’m sure I could make her change her mind. Well, maybe not. Maybe I could imagine I was funny in the way Simon Pegg is funny.