THE HEAT (COMEDY / CHICK FLICK) **** out of *****
(It's the Sandy & Missy Show - watch out...)
CAST: Sandra Bullock, Melissa McCarthy, Demian Bichir, Tom Wilson, Marlon Wayans, Michael Rapaport, Spoken Reasons, Jane Curtin, Dan Bakkedahl.
DIRECTOR: Paul Feig
WARNING: Some SPOILERS and some damn good examples of female bonding - straight ahead.
IT'S LIKE THIS: Ah, the Buddy Cop Flick... has there ever been a sub-genre within the Action Genre so done-to-death and so uttelry cliched by now, that even the cliches themselves like to throw parties and have drinking games where they watch flicks like LETHAL WEAPON and 48 HOURS and TANGO & CASH - and slam back a shot of Tequila every single time they spot themselves on screen? Have you seen a bunch of cliches drunk off their gourd and tottering around your living room? Not a pretty sight, folks.
In addition to the three flicks mentioned before, there's been an absolute glut of movies that have peddled the same type of formula that is as familiar now, to audiences everywhere, as Brad Pitt's abs. The Buddy Cop Flick Formula goes a little something like this: "a mismatched, bickering pair of cops - one usually a straight-arrow, the other usually a rebellious misfit - reluctantly team up to solve a mystery and eventually learn to respect and like each other." Other examples of this kind of movie include: RED HEAT, THE OTHER GUYS, STARSKY AND HUTCH, THIS MEANS WAR, BLACK RAIN, THE PRESIDIO, and many, many, many more. An important point to, uh, point out is that all of these movies feature male cops.
That's not to say there have never been any Female Buddy Cop Flicks. There have been a couple - and both pretty much bombed at the box office. These were the late-80's/early-90's movies like FEDS and V.I. WARSHOWSKI, which featured female cops as protagonists. But they had about as much of positive impact on audiences as a rotten-egg-fart in the middle of a crowded theater. What the fuck gives? Why do Male Buddy Cop Flicks routinely rack up the grosses, whereas the few Female Buddy Cop Flicks open to theaters full of crickets? Is that the reason why there have been so few of them over the years? Hmmmmm….
Now, we have THE HEAT, which features - yes, you guessed it - two mismatched detectives. And, in defiance of the proven-successful formula dictating that the dicks must have, um, dicks, our heroes are, um, heroines. As in, female. Our Heroine # 1 is Sarah Ashburn (Sandra Bullock), a New York City FBI Agent who is one of those over-achieving types who think they are always right and are always bucking for number one and are always at odds with everyone else in the office - and who always usually end up hog-tied and kicked around by everyone at the annual Christmas party, and for good reason.
Sure enough, it turns out that Sarah's boss, Hale (Demian Bichir), has some serious doubts as to whether or not she should be promoted. Mostly because he isn't sure if she can work well with her colleagues. To test his, Hale assigns her to work on tracking down some mysterious Boston drug dealer named Larkin, whom no one has ever seen or identified. Not only must she track down Larkin, though, but she must also cooperative and work with the Boston PD to demonstrate her, um, "people skills."
Which brings us to Heroine # 2: she is Shannon Mullins (Melissa McCarthy). Folks, I want you to close your eyes. Now, please imagine Eric Cartman from SOUTH PARK - but with a vagina, longer hair, and somehow even more rotund and even more foul-mouthed. Have that terrifying picture in your mind, yet? Good, because that's basically who Shannon Mullins is. And here's the kicker: Shannon is whom Sarah must work with to show Hale that she can work with a team. Let's just say that any of the missions in any of the MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE movies were cakewalks compared to Sarah Ashburn's mission here.
Sure enough, the “Sarah and Shannon” show doesn't get off to strong start. For starters, Sarah believes in wearing stylish, business-like, FBI-regulation pantsuits, whereas Shannon barely wear pants of any kind, at all. Sarah believes in interrogating suspects the way it is prescribed in the FBI manual, whereas Shannon just calls it a day and clocks 'em in the face with the nearest phonebook if they don't talk. And most challenging of all: Shannon can drink the entire nation of Ireland right under the table, whereas Sarah has half an Amstel Light and calls it a night. Hey, that rhymes! Whatever.
So... will Sarah and Shannon learn to work together? Will Hale see that Sarah is a team player, after all, and promote her? What happens when two dipshit DEA agents (Dan Bakkedahl and Taran Killam) start competing with our ladies to see who can track down and identify Larkin first? Who is Larkin anyway? Why has no one ever lived to identify him? Has been breathing down the necks of our Heroines all this time? Or is he actually five steps ahead of them? Is he any kind of match for... "The Heat?"
Time will tell. Just watch out for any Happy Hour with Sarah Ashburn amd Shannon Mullins at the center of it. You may not survive...
BUT, SERIOUSLY: As mentioned above, the Buddy Cop Flick has been an enduring and successful formula seen in film after film after film. The curious thing, though, is that most if not all of these movies have revolved around male leads. Movies like LETHAL WEAPON (and its sequels), 48 HOURS, RED HEAT, BLACK RAIN, TANGO AND CASH, STARSKY AND HUTCH, and many more have consistently featured partners who were men. The few films that have dared to put a feminine spin on this formula have fizzled at the box office.
Female-centric Buddy Cop Flicks like FEDS and V.I. WARSHAWSKI failed to find audiences, despite CAGNEY & LACEY (a female-centric Buddy Cop TV show) being one of the most popular series on prime-time television history. Within the last few decades, only OUTRAGEOUS FORTUNE, with Bette Middler and Shelley Long, and COPYCAT, with Sigourney Weaver and Holly Hunter, were box-office hits.
But the leads of OUTRAGEOUS FORTUNE were ordinary women - not cops - who were united when the man they had both been sleeping with duped them - and they teamed up to track him down. And only one of COPYCAT's female protagonists was a cop; the other was a traumatized criminal psychologist who came out of retirement to help the cop track down a wily, elusive serial killer. MISS CONGENIALITY, another film with Sandra Bullock as an FBI agent, was a major success - but it featured only one cop as a lead. In short, we haven't really had a true Female Buddy Cop Film that was also a major success.
Until THE HEAT, that is... Quite frankly, this film is a case of perfect casting elevating a script that is rote and formulaic. The plot of THE HEAT is nothing new - hewing as close as it does to the tried-and-true Buddy Cop Flick Formula. We have two mismatched cops. One is a by-the-book, straight arrow. One is an unpredictable loose cannon. Both cannot stand each other. Both find themselves working on the same case. After some challenges, both gradually begin to like and respect the other. Both solve the case and end up close friends. THE HEAT doesn't break new ground in its plotting.
Where it does soar, however, is in the chemistry and interactions of its leads. Quite simply, Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy form a comedic match made in heaven. Neither is playing a character she hasn't played before. Bullock has played uptight, type-A control freaks in films like TWO WEEKS NOTICE, MISS CONGENIALITY, and THE PROPOSAL, while McCarthy has portrayed wild-cards-who-turn-out-to-be-decent in BRIDESMAIDS, IDENTITY THIEF, and THE HANGOVER 3. But, here, they are sharper, fuller, and more hilarious than they've ever been before.
The writers of THE HEAT refuse to treat its heroines like ciphers or caricatures. Both Sarah Ashburn and Shannon Mullins become three-dimensional characters with different sides to them. The sisterly relationship that reluctantly (and grudgingly) builds between them forms the emotional core of the film. This anchors the laughs and shenanigans in a way that would not have happened if Asburn and Mullins had not been given some depth of character. Both Bullock and McCarthy do themselves proud.
Tom Wilson, Demian Bichir, Dan Bakkedahl, Taran Killam, and Jane Curtin are similarly strong in key supporting roles. Curtin is especially hilarious as Shannon's equally acerbic and foul-mouthed mother. The scene where Sarah has to sit (and suffer) at the same table as the rest of Shannon's blue-collar Bostonian Irish clan is pure comic gold. Other funny setpieces include Sarah and Shannon's infiltration of a night-club in a loony effort to plant a bug in a suspect's cell phone. There's also Shannon's interactions with an albino DEA agent played by Bakkedahl. Simply hilarious. You'll see...
In the end, THE HEAT is a very good Female Buddy Cop Flick that is also probably the first mainstream mega-success in this sparsely-populated sub-genre. Let's hope for a sequel wherein Sarah Ashburn and Shannon Mullins get to continue their "Bramance" (AKA: A Bromance - but with women).
