The Heat

Welcome to another episode of Lights....Camera....Popcorn!

Today's review is The Heat.

Directed by Paul Feig.

Written by Katie Dippold.

Review #222

MPAA Rating: Rated R for pervasive language, strong crude content and some violence.

Run Time: 117 min

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Cast

Sandra Bullock...Ashburn

Melissa McCarthy...Mullins

Demián Bichir...Hale (as Demian Bichir)

Marlon Wayans...Levy

Michael Rapaport...Jason Mullins

Jane Curtin...Mrs. Mullins

Spoken Reasons...Rojas

Dan Bakkedahl...Craig

Taran Killam...Adam

Michael McDonald...Julian

Thomas F. Wilson...Captain Woods (as Tom Wilson)

Bridesmaids proved two things that a misogynistic Hollywood refuses to admit.

1) Females can carry a film.

2) Female comedians can carry a film.

With this in mind, a small movement of female dominated comedies have been making their way to our screens. Some decent and some not so decent. The Heat is the closest attempt to recapture the balls out raunchy comedy that Bridesmaids provided audiences. The effort was clearly there.

The final verdict however will not match it.


Plot

An uptight FBI Special Agent is paired with a foul mouthed Boston cop to take down a ruthless drug lord.

The first thing that sticks out in this film is neither Sandra Bullock or Melissa McCarthy effectively pull off their characters. In no way do you believe that Bullock is a top notch FBI agent and you believe even less that McCarthy is one of the best detectives in the Boston P.D.And you know what? That never mattered. They were so good together that suspension of disbelief isn't required. It's one of the saving graces of the film. The plot is also secondary to the overall big picture. If you're going to see this movie, you're going for 2 reasons.

Bullock & McCarthy.

As expected the relationship between the leads starts off very rocky to put it mildly. The conflicting attitudes and personalities are clearly meant to set up their buddy buddyness later on. Early on though Bullock really makes you hate her. She comes off so cocky and smug that I was surprised that the rest of the FBI didn't express more hatred towards her. On the other side you have McCarthy who plays her tough as nails cop with just enough of humor to be like able and relate able. The little jokes and insults she fires at her perps, Bullock and her superior were funny enough to get the laughs though not rip roaring funny. Then there were moments when the script tried to hard to get the big time yucks from the audience.

 

A perfect example is the scene depicted in the picture above.

It's in all the trailers where the ladies are holding a guy by his legs and then drop him onto the hood of his truck. That joke has been done a million times and much better in other films but to get a cheap laugh they put it in. The problem with this scene is that it's not that funny and they did a piss poor job framing and editing the scene. At one point the scene cuts to an overhead angle where you can clearly see the guy is dangling but the truck is not directly underneath him. If they dropped him he would land on the street but when they cut to them letting him go he's magically positioned under the truck and lands on the hood. Very poor shot construction, presentation and editing but it was designed to get a laugh so the audience looked past it.

I didn't.

It was moments like that that brought the film down a couple of notches. Again, this film isn't playing as a  straight cop film at any point so why should the comedic moments be straight either. The trick though is to balance the absurdity with the reality. The Heat misses the mark a bit.The subplots in the story drag the movie down at times then when the predictable twist comes in all films of this nature, it just doesn't feel right. This was surprising to me because the writer Katie Dippold writes for the show Parks and Recreation. It's one of the funniest shows on TV and she has written some of the funniest episodes in the past few seasons. I looked her up on IMDB and shocking development.

This was her first feature film screenplay.

It all made sense after that. A common trend in Tinseltown is when writers who predominantly write for TV, especially comedies, don't effectively translate their work when they write a feature film. It's not easy to write 90 to 120 pages when normally they churn out 15-20 per episode. It's a completely different ballgame so the final product suffers as a result. So then the responsibility of making adjustments to the project falls on the director.

Paul Feig.

He needed to step up and reign in some of the scattered elements the script had. Another surprising development because like Dippold he is a TV veteran but unlike Dippold he nailed his directorial debut with Bridesmaids. It's a but confounding why he couldn't recapture the same structure Bridesmaids had with this one. Maybe it's because his first film was a dramedy and this one is an action comedy. Who knows. At this point, The Heat was an on the fence movie for me and their last second promotional frenzy convinced me to check it out. Was it great? Not even close. Was it good? Close enough. Was it funny? At times. Could it have been better? Obviously. Should it have been better? Sadly yes.

On the 5 star scale. The Heat gets 2 stars with a "Netflix It!" recommendation.

That's a wrap for today.

Until Next Episode...."I'll Save You A Seat!"

"D"