It’s not because you were driving faster — it’s because your brain treats the two journeys differently.
On the way there, everything is unfamiliar. New roads, new landmarks, and uncertainty make your brain work harder. You subconsciously check progress more often, which stretches your perception of time.
On the way back, the route is familiar. Your brain switches to autopilot, stores fewer memories, and stops actively tracking the journey. With less attention on the road, time feels like it passes faster.
We pay extra to remove them, block them, mute them, skip them.
Then we fly thousands of miles to Times Square — the most aggressively advertised place on the planet — and stand there staring at screens.
Here’s the funny part:
I can’t remember a single advert I saw.
Not one brand. Not one product.
The only thing I remember is my wife mentioning Mean Girls — because it was something our daughter watched. That stuck. The million-dollar screens didn’t.
Which says a lot.
Times Square isn’t memorable because of what it’s selling.
It’s memorable because of the people you’re with, the throwaway comments, the shared moments — the stuff advertising can’t buy.
The irony is, the loudest ads in the world end up being background noise…
and the quiet human moments are what stay with you.
But if it somehow slipped past you at the time — or you’ve only ever half-watched it — it’s well worth sitting down and giving it a proper go.
On the surface, it looks like a daft action comedy. Underneath that, it’s a surprisingly sharp film that rewards repeat viewing more than most.
Why it still holds up
At its core, Hot Fuzz is a buddy cop film, but it doesn’t just parody the genre — it genuinely understands it. The action scenes are over-the-top on purpose, the dialogue is packed with throwaway lines, and nearly every joke pays off later in the film if you’re paying attention.
It’s also one of those rare films that gets better the more times you watch it. Once you know where it’s going, you start spotting all the little setups, callbacks, and background gags that you’d completely miss the first time round.
The pacing helps as well. It starts off fairly grounded, then slowly ramps up the absurdity until it’s gone completely off the rails — but somehow still makes sense within its own logic.
The Lads Room verdict
This is an easy watch in the best possible way.
It’s funny without trying too hard, violent without being grim, and clever without disappearing up its own backside. You can stick it on casually, or actually sit and watch it properly — it works either way.
If you like films that are:
Highly rewatchable
Packed with quotable lines
Silly on the surface but well put together underneath
…this one deserves its place in your rotation.
The Lads Room Rating: Pretty f***ing good
A few things you might not know
If you’ve already watched Hot Fuzz, here are a few extra details that add a bit more appreciation on a rewatch:
Although the film is set in the fictional village of Sandford, it was largely filmed in Somerset, with several real villages used for exterior shots.
Many of the action scenes deliberately mimic classic Hollywood cop films, right down to camera angles and editing styles — it’s parody, but very intentional parody.
A lot of the jokes and lines that seem like throwaway gags early on are actually setups for much later payoffs.
The village itself was designed to feel almost too perfect, which helps sell the slow reveal as things start getting stranger.
Some scenes that look chaotic and improvised were actually tightly choreographed, especially during the action-heavy final act.
Cate Blanchett makes a brief, masked appearance as Nicholas Angel’s ex-girlfriend — which is why most people never realise it’s her.
Part of our ongoing “Classics You Might Have Missed” picks.
