Movie review: The Heat

MOVIE REVIEW: You won't be needing a thermometer to take the comedic temperature of The Heat.

MOVIE REVIEW: You won't be needing a thermometer to take the comedic temperature of The Heat.

While it might be an easy enough film to warm to - thanks mainly to the opposites-repel casting of the two names at the top of the cast list - don't go sweating on too many big laughs happening here.

While The Heat is kind of funny sometimes, it is also absolutely formulaic all of the time.

And to top it all off, you've never seen more of a winning combo fight more of a losing battle than The Heat's leading ladies, Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy.

Melissa McCarthy and Sandra Bullock

What are they up against? A letdown of a script, which lazily assumes a buddy-action flick where the buddies aren't blokes will be enough to blow the minds of audiences everywhere.

The plot rips some well-thumbed pages from the good-cop-mad-cop playbook. So there will be no prizes for guessing who will be who in this particular zoo.

Yep, Bullock is the organised, stuck-up, by-the-rules one.

Which means McCarthy - echoing her previous star turns in Bridesmaids and Identity Thief - is the messy, street-smart, renegade one.

For reasons too inconsequential to mention, Bullock's Ashburn, a high-ranking FBI agent, is paired up with McCarthy's Mullins, a low-ranking street cop.

The Heat Premier

Their assignment is to bring down a Boston drug baron. But that's of secondary importance in The Heat, when there are so many so-so set-pieces to get to.

Most trade in a bitchy brand of bickering where Bullock will get uppity about something, and McCarthy will gun her down with a profane punchline.

Both performers are blessed with superb comic timing, and keep hitting their marks in a professional fashion. Even when the material fails them completely.

However, The Heat runs for close to two hours, which is simply an unfathomable flaw when the funny is running in such scant supply.

It could even be argued that with Bullock and McCarthy conforming so strictly to type, a fresher take might have been for the pair to switch roles.

> The Heat
Rating: 3/5
Director: Paul Feig (Bridesmaids) [MA15+]
Starring: Sandra Bullock, Melissa McCarthy, Marlon Wayans, Demian Bichir.

"A faint chill in the air"