Hot Fuzz's "bromance"

Recently an Australian journalist put an interesting question to Hot Fuzz leads Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, whom some folks might know from the wonderfully funny zombie comedy Shaun of the Dead:

There are moments in your TV series Spaced and a scene in Hot Fuzz where it seems like your characters might start kissing passionately. Is that deliberate or does it just happen?

Nick Frost: I think a lot of it is me gazing at Simon's mouth throughout that scene.

Simon Pegg: A lot of those movies like Lethal Weapon, Point Break, Bad Boys, where there's two male leads, there's always sort of a romantic chemistry between them. It's easy to reduce it to a gay subtext. I think it's more complex than that - it is about a kind of love, but it's also about that dilemma of straight guys who cannot emote to another man. It's almost sad in a way. But in Hot Fuzz the romance is definitely between Danny and Angel.

One of the things that impressed me most about Shaun was the bond between the male leads (my review of the film was titled "Brideshead Reanimated"). While the men are obviously straight, they also clearly love one another very much -- and more importantly, they don't stoop to respond to gay-baiting enemies who make implications about their relationship.

The film really stood out as a "next step" in buddy movies -- guys who aren't afraid of contact or of showing affection, and who don't consider being called "gay" an insult that requires a defense. It looks like this enlightened perspective might have found its way to cop caper Fuzz as well. The movie's gotten stellar reviews thus far -- check out this promising trailer for more: