Directed by Edgar Wright

Written by Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright

Starring: Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Billie Whitelaw and Bill Nighy

120 min.

The worst thing a satire can do is become what it is parodying. It took Hot Fuzz exactly five minutes, and some flashy sound and video editing, to become Lethal Weapon 4.

Simon Pegg, a TV writer who co-scripted with fellow TV writer-turned-director Edgar Wright, stars as one-man SWAT team Sergeant Nicholas Angel. No criminal is safe in his district. As Blazing Saddles proved, the premise of a parody need not be structurally sound. But, making sense would help.

Why would Angel’s superiors want to get rid of an officer with a 400 percent arrest record? A quick shot of his co-workers spontaneously celebrating his departure shows their dislike, but is jealousy really a good enough reason to transfer a top cop to Nowheresville? That’s about as high as this concept gets.

The peaceful town of Sandford makes Mayberry look like Sin City. The commissioner’s son is a DUI magnet. His punishment: treating the staff to cake and ice cream. The local newspaper misidentifies Angel as an “Angle.” That’s good for seven minutes of milking. One grizzled officer communicates exclusively in grunts every time the camera cuts away to him. Every time. Get it?

Angel is stuck with an oafish partner/comic relief (Nick Frost). Initially the Supercop is disgusted, but beware: pathos ahead. Angel’s transition from contemptuous superior to tender comrade is as ludicrous as it is unfounded. It wasn’t until spoof got serious that I finally started to chuckle.

There was one legitimate laugh. A “swear box,” constructed to monetarily penalize potty-mouthed cops, proudly lists the offensive words on its front.

Didn’t the filmmakers ever hear of Naked Gun 500 3/4’s? Cop spoofs died decades ago and even the “geniuses” behind Shaun of the Dead can’t bring these cardboard zombies to life.

The gags are achingly arthritic. Skinny and Fatty have to chase a criminal over four fences. Svelte Angel leaps all four practically in a single bound. His tubby partner crashes through the first one. This needed the weightless touch that only a cartoonist or animator could imagine.

While Shaun of the Dead turned out to be a clever spoof on George Romero’s zombie trilogy, Hot Fuzz quickly loses focus and adopts a Not Another Teen Movie scattergun approach. Before it’s done, they shit on Goodfellas, Rosemary’s Baby, The Wicker Man and even Sergio Leone. These dolts shouldn’t be allowed to watch Once Upon a Time in the West let alone parody it.

After two agonizing hours it turns out there’s not one likable character in the bunch, yet the filmmakers want you to embrace all of them. Shaun was tough and cynical. This needed more hot, and less warm and fuzzy.

Rating: m

Written and directed by Mike White

Starring: Molly Shannon, Laura Dern, Peter Sarsgaard and John C. Reilly

97 min.

Timing is everything. In the wake of the pet food recall, has there ever been a better moment in history to release a film about a pet that accidentally dies from toxic poisoning?

Yet any advantage White gains in timing is quickly lost in technique, because repetition is the key to Mike White’s “style” in this ponderous, unfunny compilation of actors, perfectly centered in the frame, directly addressing the camera. It’s like watching an hour and a half of master shots.

Skit-TV star Molly Shannon stars as Peggy, an office secretary who spends her day in a chokingly cute cubicle. With no lovers and barely any friends to occupy her life, Peggy throws all of her affection toward her pet, Pencil.

Peggy worships her beagle, and his sudden “murder” throws her into a tailspin. A lifelong animal lover, even I had to grimace when Peggy smells her dead dog’s clothes.

As if trying to avenge her pooch’s death, Peggy becomes a crazed animal rights advocate. She buys every mutt in the pound, and it isn’t long before she’s living in the type of urine-soaked conditions that would make Aunt Bee gag.

Her brother and sister-in-law (Thomas McCarthy and Laura Dern) are so wrapped up in their own one-dimensional suburban stereotypes, they are incapable of understanding Peggy’s grief. Besides, the couple has a toddler, and any talk of “d-e-a-t-h” around the house is strictly taboo.

As if the repetitive imagery wasn’t enough to turn me away, Peggy amounts to little more than a revolting cipher. She accidentally spies a co-worker’s boyfriend in mid-cheat. Instead of telling her colleague, she blackmails the beau into adopting a dog.

At a shelter, Peggy is rejected by Newt, a drippy, asexual employee (Peter Sarsgaard). After becoming a vegan to emulate Newt, Peggy takes great comfort in the fact that she now has a label to describe her. The relationship never takes off, and in order to get back at Newt, she fantasizes that he gets raped by two bull mastiffs.

After his genuinely disturbing debut screenplay Chuck and Buck, the oh-so-delicate Mr. White hopped the Hollywood gravy train by writing the so-so School of Rock and the indefensible Nacho Libre. His directorial debut plays more like a Public Service Announcement for the American Veterinary Medical Association.

Never one to resist an easy out, Year of the Dog could very well become the dog of the year.

Rating: m

Directed by Katherine Dieckmann

Written by Ken Marino

Starring: Paul Rudd, Maura Tierney, Lauren Ambrose and Ken Marino

89 mins.

Diggers feels like a pilot for a character-driven HBO comedy series.

Four friends, all second generation clam-diggers, shuck away the ’70s before fate sticks out a size 12EE to trip them up. The first whirlwind of guilt nearly levels Hunt (Paul Rudd). Hung-over, Hunt arrives late for work only to find his dad slumped over the wheel of his dinghy.

His best friends are there to do whatever they can, which isn’t much when you consider the pedigree of these three reprobates. Jack is a slimy, career Casanova who, after the funeral, immediately hooks up with Hunt’s sister, Gina (Maura Tierney).

Cons (Josh Hamilton) is first and foremost a drug dealer. Being his best customer takes a close second. Constantly stoned, drunk or a combination thereof, Cons is your stereotypical ’70s burnout/fountain of trendy psycho prattle.

Lozo, played with pig-gusto by screenwriter Ken Marino, makes Bing Crosby look like father of the year. Not since Bad Lieutenant Harvey Keitel’s profanity-strewn diatribe in front of the kids has a father worked so hard to introduce blue material into his children’s vocabulary.

Lozo is a one-man fertility clinic. When he and his timid wife Julie (Sarah Paulson) aren’t procreating, they’re doing battle over where they’ll get the money to raise all these toddlers. And she better not even think of getting an abortion. No one is going to kill Lozo’s kid!

The foursome could simply agree to lay down arms and work for the enemy. There are giant corporations eager to buy out the local diggers. These conglomerates not only add drama, they give our boys a collective sense of victimization.

Set against a still untouched swatch of the Hamptons area of Long Island, the film suffers from period overkill. Seventies product placement and paraphernalia litter both screen and soundtrack. If only the characters had as much nuance as the busy production design.

Paul Rudd, who worked with much better material in last year’s The OH in Ohio, is a very appealing actor. Lovely ginger-bird Lauren Ambrose adds spice (and Technicolor radiance) as Hunt’s big city summer fling. Having never watched an episode or E.R., I can see why people were taken by Maura Tierney, whose performance tops an overall fine ensemble cast.

There are worse ways to spend your 10 bucks. That’s about all the enthusiasm Diggers brings forth.

Rating: