Hahahahahahahahahaha…*breathe*…hahahahahahahaha…*wipe away tears of laughter*…hahahahahahahaha…*snort*
That was me for almost the entirety of this Sandra Bullock/Melissa McCarthy buddy cop comedy extraordinaire. I’m a big fan of Bullock and almost everything she does (I refuse to believe that was her in Speed 2!). On the other hand, I wasn’t a big fan of Bridesmaids, which introduced many of us to McCarthy. I enjoyed Identity Thief where McCarthy played opposite the delightfully puddish Jason Bateman with hit-or-miss results, many of which involved literal hitting. In The Heat (soon to be available at Acorn), however, there is a great balance struck between the rather priggish and starchy Sarah Ashburn (Bullock) and the, shall we say, rough and tumble Shannon Mullins (McCarthy). Add in the rest of the Mullins clan and their assorted consorts along with a cast of characters that would make any season of COPS proud and you get a movie that has me remembering scenes and laughing again days after viewing.
The movie is filled to the brim with wonderfully timed crudeness that never veers to the scatological, sexploitative or grimace-inducing extremes of many of the other ‘edgy’ comedies offered up over the last few years (Hangover 1-3, I’m looking at you…but only askance so as to not have to actually see too much of you). The crudeness here is wonderfully balanced by an underlying sweetness epitomized in a couple of scenes toward the end of the movie, one involving a ‘found’ cat and one a yearbook inscription, the latter of which, in all honesty, put a little lump in my throat. The relationship and chemistry between the two leads is the focus around which everything else in the movie orbits and it is fantastic. Whatever the female equivalent of bromance is (and, no, to the English language’s shame, there isn’t a good word for it), these two have it and I eagerly await joining them on their next comedic misadventure.