“The Heat” marks the second collaboration between comedian
and unlikely ‘it’ girl Melissa McCarthy and television producer turned director,
Paul Feig. In 2011 they came together for the massively successful
“Bridesmaids”, where not only did they up-end the expectations of what a comedy
with a mostly female cast could do monetarily, but they even managed to get
McCarthy an Oscar nomination for a broad comedic performance.
Here,
with the addition of Sandra Bullock, Feig and McCarthy reunite to put their
gender spin on the well-worn buddy cop comedy. Like “Freebie and Bean”, “48
Hours”, or any of the “Lethal Weapon” movies, this story brings together two
opposing personality types and revels in their clashing perspectives, as they
try and work together to solve a superfluous mystery. Does the fact that they
are women really challenge or subvert these genre cliché’s? Unfortunately it
does not. Not only is this plot exceedingly lazy and hand-me-down, but only one
of these two personalities manages to command any screen presence.
Sandra
Bullock plays FBI agent Ashburn. She’s straight-laced, by the book, and good at
her job, but she doesn’t get along well with others. So much so, that her superiors in New York tell
her that that in order to get the fancy promotion she wants, she will have to
prove that she can share her victories with a co-worker. To do so she is sent
to Boston to investigate series of murders around a drug ring. While there, she
encounters detective Mullins, a foul-mouthed, bubble breaking, bull in a china
shop, played by Melissa McCarthy. Upon meeting, their chemistry is volatile and
through the course of the film they have learn how to accommodate each other’s
character flaws and work together.
Even
though this movie exists only to a support the comedic set-up inherent in the set-up, I can’t forgive just how factory sealed this story feels. The narrative doesn’t
reward at all and it’s clear that screenwriter Katie Dippold simply bought a used
plot and decorated it with her own jokes.
There
should be a vital difference between working within a tradition and simply adhering
to a formula just to platform the performances. With “The Heat”, Feig not only doesn’t
seem to get that but doesn’t seem to care either way.
Speaking
of those performances; Yes, McCarthy is funny here. She usually is. Her broad
physicality and her comedic instincts are often spot-on and she almost manages
to pull the movie, kicking and screaming, to the finish line by her damned
self. Bullock, on the other hand, is saddled with a tepid straight-man role that
doesn’t allow her the same freedom to improvise or to ring out the comedic fuel
that McCarthy seems to be running on.
Then again
it might be that Sandra Bullock just isn’t that funny anymore…Or maybe she was
just misdirected. I don’t know. But what
I do know is that her performance is so low key that she becomes
practically invisible in this film. The result ends up as an odd couple shtick, less like Jack
Lemmon and Walter Matthau and more like Matthau and an actual lemon.
This,
like so many theatrically released comedies, feels like it was made to show
repeatedly on HBO. And when it gets there you can enjoy it in 30-45 minute
chunks before you eventually get bored and flip back and forth with whatever’s
on the Food Network. McCarthy continues
to prove that she has real staying power and deserves better movies to showcase
her talent and Bullock continues to prove that she probably deserved that Razzie
for “All About Steve” more than she deserved the Oscar for “The Blind Side”.
Originally published in the Idaho State Journal/July-2013
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