the Heat

the HEAT.. 4.0***

 

There are a lot of buddy-cop films out there and most of them feature macho males.  This genre  has long been dormant waiting for the right new combination. Enter “The Heat”, an updated and hilarious new frontrunner featuring two of Hollywood's funniest ladies! This pairing of Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy climbs to the top of the buddy-cop genre. Each is perfect as each compliments the other in comedic timing and sensibility. On screen, their chemistry pays off big time as laugh out loud jokes bounce back and forth. Bullock ( as Sarah Ashburn) plays the straight laced by the book FBI agent who lives only for her job. McCarthy ( as Shannon Mullins) is a street smart bull-in-the-china shop Boston cop who goes by less orthodox methods and seldom utters a sentence without a profanity, especially the “f” word.

The story involves uptight FBI special agent  Ashburn (Bullock) who is paired with slob Boston cop Mullins (McCarthy) in order to take down a ruthless drug lord. The catch: neither woman has ever had a partner, or a real friend. Ashburn is the kind of button-down, drink-your-milk type who does her job well, never uses foul language ( and when she finally does curse it is beyond hilarious), and never wrinkles her suit. Mullins is a slob who keeps a live hand-grenade in her refrigerator right next to a sandwich that has been around so long it should probably pay its share of the rent. She's the type of cop who insists on interrogating a male suspect by playing Russian roulette with a gun pressed against his genitals.

Bullock and McCarthy  have the sort of comedic chemistry that studios could search for decades and never successfully find or manufacture. The moment they share a scene together,  it's like magic. It’s then that  The Heat turns into something beyond special.  The greatness of any comedy team is completely dependent on the straight man. Without the likes of  Dickie Smothers’  tirelessly and expertly prodding, sighing and bantering then  Tommy Smothers   would never have been able to rake in the laughs.  As  it turns out  Sandra Bullock, with a career’s worth of romantic leads and dramatic turns under her belt, may have only just discovered her true calling as a gifted straight man (or straight woman, if you prefer). Of course, it doesn’t hurt that she’s been paired with Melissa McCarthy — one of the best, if not the best, comedic actors working today, in this utterly hilarious buddy-cop movie “The Heat.” Not only is this movie destined to be the comedy hit of the summer, but it is also pound-for-pound the funniest movie to come along since the original “The Hangover.”

One caution: While ‘The Heat' is undeniably hilarious it has a  R-rating because of all the many profanities and vulgarities continuously being thrown out. Luckily most of the gag/jokes are more hits than misses. .  

Clark