MOVIE REVIEW - The Heat

The new female buddy comedy, The Heat is here with Melissa McCarthy and Sandra Bullock.   

What The Heat actually is, is Lethal Weapon with girls, and women.   And to be honest, there is nothing wrong with that.  One cop is straight laced (Bullock) the other is outrageous (McCarthy) and they try to mix together to catch a drug lord. That's basically all you need to know, because that's all there is.

That's about all the Lethal Weapon movies were and they were big hits, and this will be too.   This movie is a great example of what it takes to make a contemporary comedy and have it work.  They have a great formula here.

First of all, any comedy that works these days is heavily R-rated.   There must be violence, action, and the scripts are very heavy with harsh language where the F-word is common place.  Plus tons of other subject matter that was taboo a few years ago.  The day of PG-13 effective comedies are over for the time being.   No judgment, that is just where we are now.   That's what this movie is.  There is a pretty fun story here, and they do develop two decent characters, but a lot of what this is, is McCarthy improvising F-bomb laced dialogue for 90 minutes.  Much of this if your close your eyes sounds like a stand up comedy routine, with virtually all lines from her sounding like a punch line.

Bullock get into the fray later in the flick, as her character loosens up and she becomes more free to participate in the festivities.   I thought much of the visual sight gags from her were pretty funny. McCarthy who is immensely popular can be, and is, quite funny at times in this flick, but after a while you realize that bit is what she has, and that's all you're gonna get.  

I like her, but she does one thing.   There will be sequels to this, and that's fine. But I would love to see more from her up the line, where she could do some really nice work, work with a real script, with a real film maker or two.  She has a very interesting niche that no one else has, and that could really be effective in the right situation.  Again, I think McCarthy is much better than this movie.  Bullock as done that, even won an Oscar for The Blind Side, but she too had to wade through her share of average projects before that.

This is not a bad movie, I know some critics have been very harsh on this, but this made the core audience laugh throughout.   This is clearly targeted at young women, and they were howling for 2 hours, so mission accomplished.  There are those that may be disappointed that this is what some feel is funny, but what we think is funny in entertainment is constantly changing. 

The Heat. They know who is going, and zero in.  Moments that are very funny. But in the end, more of a comedy routine as opposed to a comedic movie.