The Heat. (15.)
Directed by Paul Feig.
Starring Sandra Bullock, Melissa McCarthy, Marlon Wayans, Taran Killam, Michael Rappaport and Jane Curtin. 117 mins.
Comedy, as Steve Martin once observed, is not pretty. Now if I write that in connection with a Sandra Bullock/ Melissa McCarthy vehicle you will think I’m being sexist but it is a reference to the comedy not the stars. The Heat is a lumbering, vulgar and profane affair that consistently throws out roaringly funny one liners. It’s an ugly process but some amount of joy is produced.
A buddy cop comedy pairing of Bullock, returning to our screens now as an Oscar winning actress, and McCarthy, the loud mouth tubby star of Bridesmaids, is not an enticing one: it’s on a par with the BBC unveiling Amanda Holden and Chris Moyles as the presenters of the next season of The Voice. Bullock is the uptight, career driven FBI agent that none of the other Feds likes; McCarthy is the slobby detective that none of the other cops like. Bullock does her standard ditzy, clumsy, career girl routine, even though it isn’t really suitable for a character who is supposed to be exceptionally competent. McCarthy does her foul mouthed bull in a china shop routine.
McCarthy’s comedy style seems to have been inspired by watching a Channel 5 documentary on a Tourette’s sufferer. She spews forth a relentless torrent of insults and aggression at everybody around her but the sheer volume of her invective causes it to spiral off into wild and weirdly excessive imagery. The film is wired to her head down energy and it batters you into submission. Once it has you subdued it rewards you with some oddly charming and inventive jests. The set-up may be lazy but the execution is anything but.
Bullock performance amounts to not much more than being good sport and showing willing to muck in, but she gives a sweet twist to prissy objections such as “I feel like you have misrepresented my vagina,” after McCarthy has impugned the state of her female hygiene.
Directed by Paul Feig.
Starring Sandra Bullock, Melissa McCarthy, Marlon Wayans, Taran Killam, Michael Rappaport and Jane Curtin. 117 mins.
Comedy, as Steve Martin once observed, is not pretty. Now if I write that in connection with a Sandra Bullock/ Melissa McCarthy vehicle you will think I’m being sexist but it is a reference to the comedy not the stars. The Heat is a lumbering, vulgar and profane affair that consistently throws out roaringly funny one liners. It’s an ugly process but some amount of joy is produced.
A buddy cop comedy pairing of Bullock, returning to our screens now as an Oscar winning actress, and McCarthy, the loud mouth tubby star of Bridesmaids, is not an enticing one: it’s on a par with the BBC unveiling Amanda Holden and Chris Moyles as the presenters of the next season of The Voice. Bullock is the uptight, career driven FBI agent that none of the other Feds likes; McCarthy is the slobby detective that none of the other cops like. Bullock does her standard ditzy, clumsy, career girl routine, even though it isn’t really suitable for a character who is supposed to be exceptionally competent. McCarthy does her foul mouthed bull in a china shop routine.
McCarthy’s comedy style seems to have been inspired by watching a Channel 5 documentary on a Tourette’s sufferer. She spews forth a relentless torrent of insults and aggression at everybody around her but the sheer volume of her invective causes it to spiral off into wild and weirdly excessive imagery. The film is wired to her head down energy and it batters you into submission. Once it has you subdued it rewards you with some oddly charming and inventive jests. The set-up may be lazy but the execution is anything but.
Bullock performance amounts to not much more than being good sport and showing willing to muck in, but she gives a sweet twist to prissy objections such as “I feel like you have misrepresented my vagina,” after McCarthy has impugned the state of her female hygiene.
