The Heat

I was terrified to watch this movie.  The trailers looked kinda funny.  The marketing pushed Paul Feig's connection with Bridesmaids (a movie that is great because of its script, which he did not write).  Despite these signs that The Heat was probably watchable but nothing great, people kept telling me how crazy funny it was.  I felt like I was going to have to go through the same thing I went through with the release of 21 Jump Street.  That movie turned out to be intensely unfunny and I had to spend the next few months letting the people who assured me that it was hilarious know how misguided they were.  Luckily, The Heat is not going to put me in that position.  It lived up to its promise: it is watchable but nothing great.

 

The movie tells the tale of an FBI agent who is overly dedicated to her job.  She feels that she is looked down on by her male peers and overcompensates for insecurities making her both highly effective and incredibly unlikable.  While on a case in Boston, she must team up with a foul mouthed detective who is also despised by her co-workers.  The two ladies fiercely try to one-up each other until they realize that until they work together, they'll never catch the bad guy. 

 

The ladies in this film are played by Sandra Bullock (FBI) and Melissa McCarthy (Boston PD).  They very charming and talented actors, but they should not be forced to ad-lib off each other.  Bullock can deliver a funny line with precision timing, but she lacks the chops for riffing.  McCarthy, however, is incredible at improvisation.  The problem is that she requires someone equally skilled to bounce quips off of (in The Heat, she just resorts to excessive cursing).  As such, much of The Heat is awkward.  And not in an intentional sorta way.  I was embarrassed for them.

 

Also, there are many scenes that are purely filler.  They do not progress the story or develop the characters.  I'm sure this script came up short on run time and the writer inserted random scenarios that she thought would be funny.  This results in the film having unfunny bits that also manage to trip up the pacing.

 

But the film does get better.  In fact, the last act is fantastic!  Once these gals settle their differences (by realizing they have no differences), the movie really takes off.  When they're at odds with each other, they're obnoxious.  When they join forces, Bullock and McCarthy are really fun.  If The Heat wanted to be a truly great comedy, the gals would've been friends much sooner.  Like 30 minutes in;  not 30 minutes from the end.

 

One last complaint, all the male characters are shitheads.  Well, all but one and even that guy just wants to hook up with Sandra Bullock.  I don't care that the message is basically "girl power" and "anything a man can do, a woman can do," this was ridiculously heavy-handed.  It made me hate the filmmakers not the chauvinist characters.

 

I would barely recommend The Heat.  It's the kind of movie you watch on basic cable because it happens to be on and there's nothing else to watch.  It may actually be funnier on cable.  There's plenty use of the word "fuck" and hearing the words they substitute to appease the FCC could be hilarious.

 

5.5 out of 10