The Heat (DVD REVIEW)
The Heat
DVD
Review by Kam Williams
Bullock
and McCarthy Paired as Unlikely Partners in Good Cop-Bad Cop
Comedy
FBI Agent Sarah Ashburn (Sandra
Bullock) has been dispatched to Boston
where she’s assigned to apprehend a ruthless drug kingpin. However, her boss is
concerned about the uptight, 12-year veteran’s horrible habit of rubbing her
relatively-relaxed colleagues the wrong way.
Sure
enough, upon arriving in Beantown, the proper Yale grad manages to irritate her
new partner even before they’re formally introduced, when the two have a spat
over a spot in a police precinct parking lot. Sarah subsequently meets
foul-mouthed Shannon Mullins (Melissa McCarthy), a hard-nosed city cop working
a beat on a rough side of town.
They still
grudgingly agree to investigate the narcotics case together, and it doesn’t
take long for their contrasting law enforcement styles to generate a lot of
friction. Nerdy Sarah tends to play it by the book while Dirty Harry-like Shannon could care less about following the rules or
respecting suspects’ rights. Nevertheless, they’re soon following a trail of
clues that takes them from a seedy nightclub to a rundown tenement to an
abandoned warehouse along the waterfront.
Thus
unfolds The Heat, a good cop-bad cop comedy reuniting director Paul Feig with
Melissa McCarthy, the relentlessly-raunchy scene-stealer who upstaged the rest
of the ensemble in his equally-hilarious Bridesmaids. Here, McCarthy holds her
own in a lead role opposite Sandra Bullock, with the pair generating just the
right chemistry as terminally-mismatched partners.
Though the
talented supporting cast includes Marlon Wayans, Michael Rapaport and Jane
Curtin, make no mistake, this flick is all about the witty repartee between the
protagonists. Typical is this salty exchange coming in close quarters, where
Sarah’s complaint “Your breast is invading my space.” is met by Shannon’s fair warning to “Keep your finger off my
areola.”
In another
scene, Sarah blushes while Shannon plays a
game of Russian roulette with a pistol pointed directly at a perp’s gonads.
Despite all the bawdy jokes, The Heat is grounded by a sensitive storyline that
actually has you investing emotionally in the characters.
So, expect
to shed a few tears by the end of this two-fisted tale of female empowerment
about a pair of polar-opposite lady lawmen who set aside their differences to
get their man while forging an enduring friendship worthy of a sequel.
Excellent
(4 stars)
Rated R
for violence, crude humor and pervasive profanity, plus unrated version
Running time: 117
minutes
Distributor: 20th
Century Fox Home Entertainment
Blu-Ray/DVD Combo
Pack Extras: Bloopers; deleted, alternate and extended scenes; 5 commentaries;
Acting Master Class; and Mullins Family Fun.
To see a trailer for The Heat, visit:
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