Academy Award winner Sandra Bullock and Academy Award nominee Melissa McCarthy team-up for the female buddy-cop comedy “The Heat”. This movie was originally scheduled to open on April 5th, but Fox decided to push the film’s release to the summertime hoping for bigger box office. Unfortunately they didn’t put-out a new trailer, so we’ve been forced to watch the same one for the last nine months. I think I have it memorized! It turns out that the majority of the scenes in the trailer were re-edited for the final version of the film. But those changes didn’t help – “The Heat” is still very, very unfunny.
Bullock plays FBI agent Sarah Ashburn. She’s worked at the Washington DC headquarters for about 12 years and made a name for herself by sending a notorious murderer to prison. In order to have a chance a promotion, Ashburn has to go to Boston and work with loud, foul-mouthed street cop Shannon Mullins (McCarthy) to take down a drug lord.
“The Heat” has a skimpy plot for a two-hour comedy. It also tries way too hard to make you laugh with an over-the-top, repetitive and consistently annoying script. The running jokes simply aren’t funny. There are hardly any clever one-liners and the gags (meant to shock the audience) fail miserably.
Bullock and McCarthy work well together on screen. They’re both likeable, but they are handcuffed with one-note characters. Ashburn is the typical divorced, lonely agent whose only companion is a cat that’s not even her own. Every other word out of Mullin’s mouth is the reason this movie got its “R-rating”, and after awhile you really get sick of her sarcasm. Do not expect McCarthy to receive an Oscar nomination for this performance.
The only surprising elements in “The Heat” are the dramatically violent ones. Characters get shot in the head, stabbed, die in explosions. This movie is all-over-the-place.
Director Paul Feig was hoping to duplicate the success of his 2011 raunchy, adult comedy “Bridesmaids”, but “The Heat” lacks the originality, charm and pure laughs of that film. The bland supporting cast includes Oscar nominee Demian Bichir, Marlon Wayons and Taran Killam (“Saturday Night Live”).
“The Heat” is rated R for the strong language, violence and crude content. It’s appropriate for mid-teens and up. No doubt some audiences will be entertained by McCarthy’s outrageous antics and colorful language (Bullock is way out of her comfort zone here) and enjoy this film. I wasn’t and I didn’t.
On The Official LCJ Report Card, “The Heat” gets a D.