The Heat

Often in a buddy pic, you’ll have two enjoyable but disparate fellows, like Charles Grodin and Robert DeNiro in Midnight Run. Or you might have one amiable and one less-than-amiable but grows on you, like Eddie Murphy and Nick Nolte in 48 Hrs., or two bad-but-honorable-in-their-own-way guys like Tony Curtis and Sydney Poitier in The Defiant Ones. And then you have The Heat, which saw fit to give us two uncompromisingly rotten major players. I didn’t like them when they introduced. I didn’t like them when the film ended. I respected only that they liked one another. And I felt sorry for them.

Is that what you really want out of your screenplay? “It’s a winner because people will feel sorry for these assholes.”

Ashburn (Sandra Bullock) is introduced first. She comes off as an elitist, insufferable know-it-all. She’s a Grade A FBI Agent (except when her detective work conveniently sucks ass for the sake of plot or humor or character development, of course), but everyone hates her because she approaches every crime scene like she’s a detective on “Masterpiece Theater.”  Her hobbies include thieving the neighbor cat for quality cuddle time.

To win a promotion, Ashburn has to solve a case in Boston where she runs afoul with Mullins (Melissa McCarthy). Did I say “foul?” Yeah, that about sums up the slovenly, provincial trash-talking detective. After realizing she has to play nice with the FBI agent, Mullins begins a deliberately loud inquiry as to where the Police Captain’s balls are. Tom Wilson just sits flummoxed and frustrated by the situation. Never thought I’d actually feel sorry for Biff Tannen. So if I understand correctly, Hollywood: when the male play-by-his-own-rules detective acts belligerent to the Captain, the next moment involves the handing over of gun and badge, but when the female play-by-her-own-rules detective acts belligerent to the Captain, the next moment involves quiet time with Sandra Bullock.

These two hate one another, which is actually a little refreshing. Neither gets along with anybody else, why should they like one another? Somebody like me, however, wonders how either was able to get a job in the first place – unless you work for yourself, you have to play nice at some point, doncha? When the two get down to business, you get scenes like the one in which both knock on a perp’s door to assert alpha femaleness. And the nightclub scene. Oh my, the nightclub scene. I can’t decide which moment was the worst for me: was it when McCarthy takes nail scissors to Bullock’s pantsuit? Was it Bullock molesting a druglord on the dance floor? Was it McCarthy explaining her own sexual appeal? Was it Bullock’s forced passion to pry a cell phone from a mark? Was it the sexually aggressive Don Knotts wannabe? Well, hey, you know what? I’ve never seen spanx before. Thank you, movie.

Given the recent flak in the press over comments made about Melissa McCarthy’s body image, I was a little appalled by how much time The Heat, and specifically McCarthy’s character herself, spends making fun of an albino (Dan Bakkedahl). But The Heat isn’t about fairness, it’s about equality. If male cops can make make a shitty buddy pic, hey, so can we. You go, girls.

♪She’s walkin’ hard the beat
She’s got that inept touch
She’s cleaning up the street
With ovaries and such
She won’t take a back seat
And I’m just all abuzz
Hot girls in fuzz♫

Rated R, 117 Minutes
D: Paul Feig
W: Katie Dippold
Genre: She-buddy
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: The Bechdel police
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: Those who hated the trailer

♪Parody inspired by “Hot Girls in Love”