Heat and Serve

First, sorry for the long delay - I was on vacation, and was surprised that I didn't feel like spending the day blogging. Anyway, there was only one movie in my writing queue: The Heat (2013), the Sandra Bullock/Melissa McCarthy buddy cop movie.

We meet FBI agent Bullock in a bust going wrong. A dozen agents search the place and find nothing. Bullock showily finds both the big bag of pot and all the hidden guns, making the agents and particularly the drug dog hang their heads. 

Instead of getting her a promotion, her boss tells her that everyone hates working with her because she's a show-off and know-it-all. He wants her to go to Boston to find a notorious dealer who no one has ever seen and who kills everyone who gets close in horrible ways.

Meanwhile, McCarthy is a Boston plainclothes cop staking out a street corner. When a john stops to pick up a girl, she busts him and calls his wife, just to mess with him. On the way downtown, she notices a kid (pimp?), gives him a hard time, notices his joint and off they go. Now right here, I have to say that the image of a white police woman chasing a black teen with a car is more appalling than funny - so not a good start.

Any way, the kid gets put into jail and Bullock shows up and starts interrogating him. When McCarthy comes in and wants to know why someone is questioning her guy, you just know that Bullock and McCarthy will be forced to team up, will fight, and will finally learn to trust and respect each other. Because it's that kind of movie.

Basically, it's every mismatched buddy cop movie, except with women. Bullock plays her old role from Miss Congeniality - the stuck-up, by the books agent who has to learn to be more human. McCarthy plays her standard role of a rough-hewn slob. She is shocked when she sees that the windows in Bullock's apartment have those, what do you call 'em, window blankets. At least the joke isn't that she's a nice lady who says "fuck" a lot.

But honestly, this isn't a bad movie. There are some funny jokes - McCarthy's Boston family wants to know if Bullock is a "nawk", and she can't figure out they mean "narc".  The two characters are well drawn (if sort of off-the-shelf) and the actresses know how to handle them. Not a great movie, but I didn't mind watching it.