pylint can help with misspelled variables and type errors. I started using it recently and love it. I still love my C++ compiler though and would not trade it for anything else.
As another example, Java may let you get NullPointerException, but FindBugs detects a lot of those.
Depending on your editor of choice, you can get integrated pyflakes/pyling/flake8, e.g. I use vim and the syntastic plugin which is great.
This way, you get a bit of on the fly static checking without needing to remember command line tools/using vcs hooks, which is much more productive.
Thanks again.