It’s always amazing when a sequel for a movie gets the green light before the first film even comes out. It’s a pretty big risk for a studio but it’s also an indicator as to how confident they are in the film that’s about to be released. After getting an opportunity to see an advanced screening of The Heat this past week, I now completely understand why Fox gave The Heat 2 the go-ahead as the original film, which is directed by Bridesmaids helmer Paul Feig, is absolutely hilarious and the first R-rated comedy of the summer season that’ll win the entire crowd over.
The plot for The Heat may not be the most original as it follows your standard unlikely buddy cop pairing, opposites attract movie plotline. All you need to do to understand the story is imagine the plotline and pairing of the original Rush Hour but instead of Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker you have two female officers, one is Sarah Ashburn (Sandra Bullock), a by-the- books, arrogant but skilled FBI agent and the other is Shannon Mullins (Melissa McCarthy), an outlandish and foul mouthed detective for the Boston Police Department. The two women, neither of whom has ever had a friend or a partner, are required to team up in order to take down a drug lord that enjoys cutting people up to scare people from snitching.
If you ask me, two hour comedies rarely ever work (as Judd Apatow has shown with his last two films), but with The Heat, which comes in at 117 min., you don’t even notice that the movie is just shy of the two hour mark. That’s how wonderfully entertaining it is. Writer Katie Dippold was really fortunate to have Paul Feig direct and a great comedic cast to bring her film to life because I don’t know if the results would have been the same. McCarthy is known for her great and aggressive improvisational skills (just watch the bloopers in This is 40) so it makes me wonder how much of her dialogue was actually in the script and how much of it was her ranting, rattling off the most insane string of words she could think of. I will give Dippold props for minimizing the eventual drama and discontent between the two leads as that is always an issue I have with comedies, but she avoids that problem which leaves more room for the continual laughs which the film, and her script, delivers in abundance.
The Heat is wonderfully directed and fueled by a highly entertaining script, but what really propels to its actual greatness is the chemistry and performances by Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy. They both do incredible jobs delivering laughs but while Bullock is great, McCarthy is the scene stealer, constantly building off of Bullock’s jokes to generate more bellyaching moments from the audience. Furthermore, I love when comedies don’t have to rely on their supporting characters to generate the film’s humor as McCarthy (who is now Hollywood’s IT comedy girl) and Bullock are easily able to handle the comedic duties, but in The Heat it’s just an added bonus when guys like Tom Wilson (Biff from Back to the Future), Tony Hale (Buster from Arrested Development), Marlon Wayans and whoever the guy who plays the albino DEA agent bring even more uproarious laughs to the table.
The one downside, and f
or me this is a major one but I know I’m nitpicking, is that Melissa McCarthy doesn’t speak with a heavy Boston accent. I realize that not everyone from Boston has a heavy accent but they do manage to say a few key words differently than other folk. The fact that she doesn’t say those choice words doesn’t bother me too much, what frustrated me was that her entire family had wicked “hawdcore” Boston accents, so I’m just curious how she’s the only one who can speak properly despite growing up in that insane household. There is even one scene that highlights how heavy their accents are when Bullock and one of Mullins’ brothers are having a conversation. Regardless of the mostly predictable story arc of the film which I’m fine with, thanks to a nice little twist, and a couple of smaller issues, this was the one major item that bothered me throughout.
The Heat is by far the best straight-up mainstream comedy I’ve seen this year thanks to the glorious combination of Bullock and McCarthy and the fantastically vulgar mouth that Melissa’s character has. Paul Feig certainly has another winning feature on his hands and I’m thankful for the blending of various types of humor to help make this film stand out and not a generic rehash of other R-rated comedies that have dominated the summer over the past few years or so. Its plot may not be the most unique but that doesn’t matter when all you’re doing the entire movie is spitting out your beverage every two minutes because you’re unable to contain your laughter.
Rating: If you have kids, leave them at home, because The Heat is coming and it delivers all the R-rated buddy cop laughs you could ever ask for (7.4/10)
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