Generally speaking---I really do hate Sandra Bullock. I don't think she even came close to deserving the Oscar for The Blind Side and she always manages to rub me the wrong way. Melissa McCarthy's not too high on my list of favorites, either. Don't get me wrong---I think McCarthy can be hilarious. It's just that she's not hilarious like she should be a lot of the time and she's incredibly overrated in my opinion. Also...am I really the only one who thought the fact that she got nominated for Bridesmaids was ludicrous? I mean---I liked her performance but an Oscar nomination? Get real. However, The Heat proves that you can put two people I don't particularly like in a film together and I may even find both of them and the movie to be something pretty fantastic. This one of those times. Re teaming McCarthy with Bridesmaids director Paul Fieg and featuring a hilarious script by first time screenwriter Katie Dippold....this is a comedy in which I rarely stopped laughing during its whole two hours. This might be the second year in a row that the funniest film of the summer is a mismatched buddy cop comedy. However, last year's 21 Jump Street featured actors I thoroughly enjoy. Here....the two cops are played by one actress I almost never enjoy and one I enjoy only on occasion.
The film follows FBI agent Sarah Ashburn (Bullock) who always manages to get the bad guys but doesn't work well with any other agents. She constantly insults them and bosses them around and thinks she's always going to be the best. Her boss (Demian Bichir) sends her to Boston to stop a drug kingpin. When she first gets to Boston...she angers Detective Shannon Mullins (McCarthy.) Little does Ashburn know that she'll soon need Mullins' help to crack the case.
The thing that consistently made me laugh was McCarthy's character. The coupling is funny enough as is. Ashburn is a squeaky clean agent who just wants to get in, do the job correctly and get out. Mullins is an easily triggered, foul mouthed agent who doesn't care about doing the job correctly as long as she gets to make someone's life miserable. However, McCarthy makes Mullins into what could soon become a classic character. The insults she throws at people as well as just how little it takes to get her mad is hysterical. The first scene we see her in she's ruining a guy's life despite the fact that she doesn't know him. This was a dangerous move for the film to make because it could have made us hate Mullins throughout but McCarthy pulls it off so well. Bullock is also pretty great here. As the complete opposite of Mullins, Bullock plays off McCarthy fantastically. She makes us truly believe that Ashburn will never get out of her straight laced life but also makes us think that she may have a wild side after all.
The film also features a surprisingly touching subplot about Mullins' family and her imprisoned brother (Michael Rapaport.) Also...another similarity to 21 Jump Street besides the fact that it's tons of fun is that it works incredibly well as a straight cop film. You get more and more intrigued with whether or not these two cops will find the main drug kingpin as they dig further and further into the case. This is the type of plot that, although in a comedy setting, can very easily be taken seriously.
There's no other way to put it----The Heat is the most fun I've had at the movies so far this summer. Sure---This Is The End may be more inventive and Furious 6 may be more action packed but The Heat surprised the most and that doesn't count for nothing.
(4 and 1/2 out of 5 Stars, The film is rated R for pervasive language, strong crude content and some violence)
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