The Heat (2013)
Certified: 15
Duration: 117 minutes
Directed by: Paul Feig
Starring: Sandra Bullock, Melissa McCarthy, Dan Bakkedahl, Demián Bichir, Tom Wilson, Michael Rapaport, Marlon Wayans, Jane Curtin, Michael McDonald
KRS release

Sandra Bullock is Sarah Ashburn, a terribly super-efficient FBI agent, who is after a promotion. Her attitude does not go down well with the other members of the force and she does not have any friends.

In order to get the promotion, she has to go to Boston, where she needs to close a case revolving around a mysterious drug lord who has never been photographed. She gets help from Agent Levy (Marlon Wayans).

They start by interrogating drug dealer Rojas (Spoken Reasons). The problem is that local detective Shannon Mullins (Melissa McCarthy), who had captured Rojas in the first place, does not take kindly to anyone invading her turf.

Mullins is feared by the bad and good guys alike. She is efficient but vulgar, rough and in your face. By hook or by crook, she and Ashburn end up working on the same case and become partners.

Mullins’s brother Jason (Michael Rapaport) has just come out of prison after she had put him there for dealing in drugs and she worries that he might be involved.

Also involved in the case are DEA agents Craig (Dan Bakkedahl) and Adam (Taran Killam) who had been following the case. They see the two women as an added complication that could ruin their investigation.

Boston will never be the same again.

Bullock and McCarthy keep The Heat together against all odds: director Paul Feig (Bridesmaids) and a screenplay that lacks inspiration.

Feig pits them into one embarrassing situation after the other and Katie Dippold’s script features all the clichés we usually associate with the buddy cop movie.

Films like The Heat live and die on how much one ends up laughing throughout its duration. The issue with this one is that there are only a few laughs to be had. It is only thanks to the teaming up of the two high-calibre actresses that the film rises above its limitations.

Most of the gags focus on the mismatching of McCarthy and Bullock. Up till a certain point this is funny, but then it becomes humiliating. While the two end up bonding on screen, I felt that the bonding Feig brought to the screen in Bridesmaids (2011) was more effective. Here it lacks a certain spark.

Besides, Feig overplays his hand and the film ends up repeating itself, rendering it a constant tussle with what should be its strength: McCarthy’s screen presence.

The repetition comes from seeing the same thing being done differently by the two protagonists. I understand that they are different but that was obvious from the first moment they walked on screen and Feig milks this element too much.

The rest of the cast is nondescript and when the villain is finally revealed, the identity had long been written on the wall.