Eschewing the usual three-act structure employed by most action movies, Hot Fuzz takes a very different approach, with Pegg and Wright splitting the movie into two very distinct sections: the first features a deliberate restraint and focus on inactivity as Angel is forced to deal with missing swans, church fetes and a village in which nothing of any note seems to happen... save, it must be said, a few suspicious deaths which Angel begins to believe are far from being accidents.

The second half of the film, in which Angel decides to take arms against a sea of troubles, sees the film shift into top gear with a series of shoot-outs, car chases, explosions and John Woo-esque gunplay.

"We didn't want to destroy the idyll of the gentle English countryside by having it too over-the-top right from the start," explains Wright. "The tone shifts slowly. Essentially, the film is structured around the development of Simon and Nick's characters, their relationship is at the heart of the film.

"The big dramatic shift actually happens before anything kicks off," continues Wright. "Danny makes Nicholas watch Point Break and Bad Boys 2 back-to-back and because it's late, they both fall asleep in front of Bad Boys 2.

I like the idea that even though they're asleep, the Michael Bay-isms are permeating their subconscious. After that point Nicholas becomes more like a badass cop!"

From the off, Pegg and Wright knew that this sudden shift in tone and pace might take audiences by surprise.

To explain the evolution from quaint British murder mystery into explosive American-style action movie, the duo came up with a defining descriptive phrase: popcorn logic.

"It's Bruckheimer's Law," laughs Pegg, referring to action movie producer Jerry Bruckheimer.

"Popcorn logic is our way of excusing bad continuity! No, we're always very thorough about the logic of the plot, about how everything has to be feasible.

But with popcorn logic, we started to take on board this idea that a lot of overblown action films demand that you suspend your disbelief a little bit more. We wanted to do both and so at times we did things that were purposefully unlikely. We'd fly through the air for ten seconds firing guns, for example.

And the end is just crazy - it's like a videogame and there are lots of levels they have to go through before reaching the Big Boss at the end."

Sedate though the first half of the movie may be Wright's directorial style ensures that it's far from dull. "He never fails to amaze me. He's a machine. He absolutely will not stop," says Pegg.

"The amount of rigs we had on this film, I've never seen before. We had a camera on a rickshaw, we had a camera on a Segue, like GOB rides in Arrested Development. Edgar's always trying to evolve his style.

He's done some fabulous stuff with flashbacks and that classic Brian De Palma thing where, as in Dressed To Kill, you revisit a scene you've seen before but you notice something else in the shot that you didn't get to see the first time."

De Palma isn't the only director that the prodigiously talented Wright pays homage to in Hot Fuzz, with nods to everybody from Tony Scott to Dario Argento studded throughout the movie.

"I wanted to re-immerse myself in all my favourite cop and action films and shoot it in that style, so this small town story is given the expansive big screen feeling of a Michael Mann film," explains Wright.

Yet it's not just the gunfights that will receive the Hollywood treatment. "When we interviewed police officers and asked what the one part of the job is that you never see dramatised on film, they all said the paperwork," laughs Wright. "And you go into these stations and for any offence, be it major or minor, you see them all hunched over a desk filling out endless forms.

So there is a lot of paperwork in the movie but it's done Man On Fire style! In terms of the visual language, this is all about the idea of taking quite mundane aspects of the police job and trying to make them look really flashy and muscular."

Hot Fuzz - The Title

And so, the last question: how did Hot Fuzz end up as the title for the film? "The title is wilfully stupid!" laughs Pegg, pinning the responsibility firmly on Wright.

"It's Edgar's title. He just wanted to appeal to that mid-to-late 70’s trash exploitation stuff like Fuzz and Superfuzz and Freebie and the Bean, titles like that. But I really like it - Hot Fuzz is the opposite of Snakes On A Plane, it tells you fuck all about the film.

It's essentially a tribute to the two-word titles of the 80's and 90's that sometimes, but not always detail the plot or spirit of the film," adds Wright.

"Die Hard, Lethal Weapon and Sudden Impact are all brilliant examples, but the further you dive into the bargain bin, the more you will find films like Double Team. There's even a Cold Heat! I would be proud to add Hot Fuzz to the top of that pile," he laughs, "in the bargain bin!"