With The Heat, director Paul Feig has found his cinematic trademark: take traditionally male-dominated genre movies, inset women instead, and show the world it can be just as entertaining. Much like he did with 2011's Bridesmaids, Feig strikes a blow for movie equality. Returning for another round is actress Melissa McCarthy, who brings the same no-holds-barred, abrasive personality that scored her an Oscar nomination in that movie. However, while Bridesmaids too often suffered from extreme tone problems as a result of getting far too serious at times, The Heat has no intention of being taken seriously, and that's a good thing. Looking at a movie like this, which has so much in common with it's male-dominated counterparts, only one question need be asked: "Is it funny throughout the running length?" The answer is a definite "yes."
For a brief moment, as we're introduced to straight-laced, uber-ambitious FBI Agent Sarah Ashburn, it appears as though Sandra Bullock is once again reprising her Miss Congeniality role. Thankfully, that's not the case. Ashburn is a phenomenal field agent, but everyone in her unit resents her, or so says her boss, Frank Woods (Tom Wilson). She desperately wants a promotion, but first she'll have to travel from New York to Boston to assist in a case involving taking down a drug lord. She soon crosses paths with Shannon Mullins (McCarthy), who is every bit as abrasive, foul-mouthed, and attention-seeking as can be. Of course, we wouldn't have a movie if these two didn't reluctantly team up and then slowly begin to respect one another, now would we?
The plot is hardly the point of The Heat. It's riddled with every cop-buddy-movie cliche imaginable, but Feig smartly never lets the recycled storyline get in the way of the laughs. Even when the "surprise" chief villain is unmasked, it's about at the level of an episode of Scooby Doo when it comes to ingenuity. The main reason why The Heat is so much fun comes down to the chemistry between Bullock and McCarthy. They're mismatched buddies in the classic sense. The former is so work-focused that her only real friend is her neighbor's cat, and the latter is such a loose cannon that she gives her stressed out, 43-year-old boss a full head of grey hair. But through their misadventures, they bond in ways that the guys do, and every bit as hilariously.
McCarthy is unquestionably The Heat's greatest asset. Not only does she have many of the best lines (many of which involve profanity the likes of which one would normally find in a Quentin Tarantino movie), but she understands timing and can make one laugh with as little as a facial expression. Bullock has been given the occasional chance for comedic roles, but rarely has she seemed so at ease with it as she is here. Together, these two are golden. They deliver some of the heartiest laughs I've had at any movie all year, including one scene where Mullins strips down Ashburn's "bank teller" outfit in the bathroom of a nightclub so she can come on to a suspect, and another where the two ladies, after a rough day, imbibe an insane amount of shots at a neighborhood bar and let loose. And let's not forget Mullins' Bostonian family, whose ridiculously thick-accents and hardcore sports fanaticism take the comedy to another level.
Ultimately, The Heat is required to follow the beats of a standard police procedural and even include a semi-serious subplot (involving Shannon's family hating her for ratting out her brother), but these are necessary evils. Unlike The Hangover Part III, this movie never loses sight of what we're here to experience. And while The Heat doesn't push the envelope in ways that franchise did, it isn't afraid to use violence and blood for laughs as well (a "knife in the leg" sequence here outdoes something similar from Will Ferrell's Talladega Nights). Still, even amid all the mayhem, the filmmakers still succeed in making us care about the two main characters. Even for a derivative comedy, that's important.
I saw a free advance screening of The Heat a week before it opened, and the audience loved it, laughing frequently throughout with seldom a dead spot. A comedy headlining two women in their forties is the rarest of breeds indeed, and Feig, Bullock, and McCarthy pull it off about as well as can be expected. I for one hope The Heat succeeds at the box office. There's no reason why this formula can't be duplicated effectively with many actresses, and we all know how Hollywood's copycat mentality operates. The Heat joins This is The End for a solid one-two punch of off-color, consistently hilarious summer comedy.
Rating: *** (out of ****)
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