“Make that four beers, one tap water, and two role reversals, please.”
Meet Ed, a pot-smoking, video gaming half-wit. As Shaun’s roommate and college buddy, Ed means well. That is, so long as your requests to take down the day’s messages or close the front door don’t interfere with his beer drinking and Time Splitters 2 marathons. Is that too much to ask?
Meet Danny, an overeager, naive police constable. Danny’s the son of his village’s Chief Inspector, which affords him the privilege of driving home drunk and slacking off while out on patrol. He’s a terrible civil servant, whether that’s in comparison to his new partner, Sgt. Nicholas Angel, or to Keanu Reeves and Martin Lawrence in the likes of Point Break or Bad Boys 2. You know, “real” cops.
By all accounts, actor Nick Frost has gotten the short end of the blood-covered stick in the first two installments of director Edgar Wright’s “Cornetto Trilogy.” As Shaun of the Dead’s Ed and Hot Fuzz’s Danny, Frost essentially plays a variation on a recurring trope: the lovable oaf. One might argue that Ed proves a far greater handcuff to Simon Pegg’s Shaun and his mid-life arrested development, but by and large, Wright’s previous films have saddled Nick Frost with the “doofus” role.
Wright’s newest film, The World’s End, changes that. Simon Pegg stars as Gary King, a washed up alcoholic who decides to round up his estranged high school pals to make a run at finishing their hometown’s bar crawl, nicknamed “The Golden Mile.” Unfortunately, Gary’s pathetic attempts to recapture his glory days are ruined when he discovers that since his graduation, his small town has been slowly replaced with a dastardly horde of well-meaning extraterrestrial robots. Yes, The World’s End is a comedic sendup of 1950’s science fiction — films like The Day The Earth Stood Still or Invasion of the Body Snatchers — but it’s also a vindication for Frost.
As Pegg’s former best friend, Frost plays Andy Knightley, an upstanding, well-dressed business type. If Andy’s high-glass office and personal secretary aren’t convincing enough that Frost’s evolved beyond his typecast, know that his character’s also a teetotaler. And make no mistake, Andy’s abstinence from alcohol is also a repudiation of Frost’s earlier roles, archetypes broadly characterized under “drunk,” “stoner,” or some combination of the two. While it’s a mild spoiler to say Andy doesn’t avoid the hard stuff forever, even an inebriated Andy separates himself from Ed and Danny of films past.
Frost and Pegg’s dynamic in The World’s End is also a welcome departure from their previous work, with both actors creating an onscreen relationship that hovers somewhere between tepid acquaintances and estranged brothers. Shaun of the Dead slowly divorced Pegg’s Shaun from an infantilizing friendship with Frost’s Ed. Hot Fuzz used Frost’s Danny as a means of telling Pegg’s uptight sergeant to lighten up every now and then. In The World’s End however, they’re never really buddy-buddies. Andy carries a big chip on his shoulder throughout much of the film, and in his reunion with Gary, a manipulative, burned-out mess, it’s not hard to see why. Frost plays Andy like a betrayed friend, a man who struggles to reconcile with and then divorce himself from his own past, and while the likes of Ed and Danny slap Nick Frost with varying degrees of shame, Simon Pegg’s Gary is nearly the endpoint of juvenile regression, a man consumed by recreating the greatest time in his life. It’s comedic, it’s exaggerated, and it’s surprisingly sad. In Nick Frost’s case, it’s also a relief.