The Heat (2013): Funny Girls

The Heat is a very funny buddy cop comedy, with a twist. The buddy-cop genre is, of course, formulaic (which is why it’s a genre). Wikipedia succinctly explains:  “A buddy cop film is a film with plots involving two people of very different and conflicting personalities who are forced to work together to solve a crime and/or defeat criminals, sometimes learning from each other in the process.”  Well, of course, we all know that.

One of the best, if not the first, of the modern buddy cop comedies, 48 Hours (1982), fits the paradigm closely: A crusty, racially intolerant, white cop (Nick Nolte) gets paired with his seeming opposite, an antic, black, ex-con (Eddie Murphy) to find a cop killer. Another early example, Lethal Weapon (1987) has suicidal, impulsive narcotics officer Mel Gibson teaming up with by-the-book family man Danny Glover to investigate a suspicious death. 1997’s Men In Black adds a sci-fi twist, but otherwise hews to the structure, as hip, hotshot , anti-establishment NYC cop Will Smith gets recruited by an older, ultra serious, super-secret alien hunter, Tommy Lee Jones, to help him save the world. An affectionate parody of the genre is Hot Fuzz (2007), in which super-successful, obsessively dedicated London police sergeant Simon Pegg, hated by his cronies, is relocated to a sleepy country hamlet, where he winds up paired with an earnest, but clueless clod of a constable in Nick Frost, to investigate a series of odd deaths.

The Heat adds a new wrinkle: the two protagonist cops are women!  This shouldn’t be a big deal, but it is. Just two years ago much was made of the fact that women were featured in a modern vulgar slapstick buddy comedy and (a) it was really funny, and (b) it was a big hit.  Bridesmaids (2011) was seen as a breakthrough film and a benchmark. That movie was directed by Paul Feig; happily, he is also the director of The Heat.

Sandra Bullock plays a highly educated, highly successful, upwardly mobile but uptight, humorless, socially pathetic FBI agent (not unlike the Simon Pegg character in Hot Fuzz) who gets teamed, somewhat inadvertently with coarse, working class, street-wise and brash beat cop Melissa McCarthy. Bullock has to do everything by the book; McCarthy threw away the book, and operates on a completely ad hoc basis. In other words, these two cops are polar opposites. Of course, sparks fly. The buddy cop routine is totally derivative, but these guys make it seem fresh.  The result is a real hoot, one of the funniest movies of the last couple of years.

The plot has to do with an assignment to track down a ruthless, vicious drug lord in Boston. There’s a fair amount of violence, but it’s of the cartoon, disposable variety, i.e. it is not disturbing and sometimes even played for laughs.  The pacing of the comedy and of the action is brisk and smooth; there’s never a dull moment.  All of this is offered through an arch, vaguely feminist perspective. I presume the target audience is women, but I, despite my manly maleness, thought it was damn funny – although my wife laughed a bit louder at some bits than I did.

So The Heat gets my recommendation. You may want to check it out. Not only will you get a chuckle, but you’ll be all set when The Heat II comes out in a year or two.