There are countless great moments in the 2007 British action comedy film Hot Fuzz from writers Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg, the same writing team behind 2004's Shaun of the Dead, and one of the most memorable of them is a truly (intentionally) awful performance of Romeo and Juliet. Having pulled a giggling pair of lovers over for speeding, Sgt. Nicholas Angel and PC Danny Butterman are reluctantly roped into attending their amateur performance of the play. What ensues is nothing short of divinely cringe-worthy:
Apologies for the lack of an embedded video but there isn't one available, presumably for copyright reasons. What I find interesting about this depiction of Romeo and Juliet is that the production within the film clearly lifts many elements directly from Baz Luhrman's Romeo + Juliet: the costumes, the appearance of firearms, and even the use of The Cardigans' song Lovefool. This is clearly for comic effect, and the sight of actors who are clearly in their thirties wearing the same iconic costumes as the fresh-faced Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes is hilarious in its bizarreness. The great British tradition of amateur dramatics is not known for its innovation, and Wright and Pegg cleverly mine this fact for humour.
After the actors in the production are murdered, their severed heads placed close to their car on the road to lead the authorities to believe it was a speeding accident, prime suspect Simon Skinner drives past in his car as Angel and Butterman investigate the crime scene. The song playing from his car radio? None other than Romeo and Juliet by Dire Straits:
That such attention was paid to detail and intertextuality in a thirty second scene is a key reason why I love both Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead, and I eagerly await the third film in their so called Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy (a title you'll get if you watch the films).
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