Movie Review: The Heat
Melissa McCarthy does it again, with the same fowl mouthed slapstick routine that has made her a movie theatre favorite. She is a brilliant comic and I genuinely feel that she has become a great actress.
Even though her now famous on camera demeanor is very popular and has catapulted her to the comedic status she currently resides, I do believe that it is at the cusp of being overdone.
This isn’t anything unusual and I by no means think she is ready to start on the downward spiral. I do, however, feel its time she try a shot at some serious acting.
When Melissa needs to put on her serious acting face she nails it, in my opinion more so than her comedic value. She is a well rounded actress and I think she should challenge herself in another direction for a film or two. All too often Hollywood wants to ride the coattails of predeceasing skills and not risk trying something new. As much monetary value is generated through the film industry it is a wonder they don’t have a formula for when it’s time to find a new direction. Wait… apologies; I forgot they weren’t in the creative entertainment business anymore. My bad! It’s hard to face the idea that modern cinema is dying at accelerating rate.
The Heat is a female crappier version of Lethal Weapon. I don’t want to make it out to be a bad film, as I did find it entertaining; it’s just another overcooked idea. If you are going to make a buddy cop movie, simply swapping genders doesn’t make it something new. I will say I am not in opposition to regurgitating ideas but you had better be good screenwriter! Sadly, the story is the same old song and dance.
It follows a semi-successful FBI agent Sarah Ashburn played by Sandra Bullock. Sarah is very good at her job to the point of no one else liking to work with her. She is up for a promotion that her boss is reluctant to award her, due to her not working well with others. He offers her a last chance option to track down a new drug kingpin and bring him to justice.
Taking the case, Sarah soon has a run-in with Boston detective Shannon Mullins, played by Melissa McCarthy. Shannon is a great detective, but terribly dysfunctional in her personal life. This does rub off to her job, but mostly through being a jerk and hard to work with. She does have some laugh out loud moments, but they are few and far between.
My favorite is when she is acting like she is looking for her Police Chiefs manly bits and referring to them as being less than normal size. The laugh out loud moment is when she is rifling through Sarah’s bag and finds some tic tacs and yells I found them and then proceeds to chuck said container at his head. Long story short, the detective and the agent team up and find themselves in some very unrealistic situations on their road to uncovering the drug lord.
Overall thoughts:
It was just alright. I can’t say I will watch it again, but I wasn’t mad that I watched it. It was the same story we have seen from every buddy cop movie the past 30 years. It was also the same Melissa McCarthy character from her previous 3 films.
I really do think that Mellissa should take on a serious role someday. She needs to challenge herself and I truly think she would own it! Sandra Bullock is boring and her character sucks in this film. I must admit that I am not much of a fan of hers, though I am still waiting for redemption for her role in Gravity. I think her role in Speed 2 was better than this one. Yes I am one of the 3 people that watched Speed 2.
The Heat has some laughs and isn’t atrocious by any means, but not good enough for me to recommend by any means.
I give it 6 out of 10
