Melissa McCarthy, as a potty-mouthed, rule-defying Boston plainclothes cop, demonstrates a unique method for interrogating a suspect in the often hilarious buddy comedy “The Heat’’ — she plays Russian roulette with her service revolver aimed at a male drug dealer’s genitals.
This procedure horrifies a by-the-book, control-freak FBI agent — winningly played by Sandra Bullock in her first comedy since she took home an Oscar three years ago for “The Blind Side” — reluctantly forced to work with McCarthy’s loose-cannon character to secure a promotion.
There’s nothing remotely original or surprising about Katie Dippold’s generic script. But the script and director Paul Feig (who directed McCarthy in “Bridesmaids’’) provide great opportunities for both actresses to do what they do best, and demonstrate their positively combustible comic chemistry.
Though the two characters’ personal styles and approaches to criminal justice couldn’t be more different, both are socially maladroit misfits surrounded by condescending male co-workers.
Sandra Bullock (left) plays a straight-laced FBI agent while Melissa McCarthy assumes the role of a potty-mouthed Boston cop in “The Heat.” (Everett Collection)
Bullock’s whip-smart agent routinely alienates colleagues by showing them up, while McCarthy’s cop’s bullying and profane insults have turned the hair of her exasperated boss (Thomas Wilson) prematurely gray.
Bullock can do a double-takes better than any actress working today, and boy, does force-of-nature McCarthy give her plenty to work with.
McCarthy’s character bulldozes her way through her job, all the while spouting a nonstop aria of profanities, crude sexual jokes and the occasional casually racist remark.
At one point, the plot requires our heroines to plant a bug in the cell phone of a suspect at a posh nightclub. I was convulsed with laughter watching the motor-mouthed McCarthy whip out a pair of scissors to perform an impromptu makeover on Bullock so her partner can get close to the guy.
This is not the first time Bullock has played a clumsy FBI agent — there was “Miss Congeniality’’ and its sequel — but she doesn’t resort to her trademark snort this time, while showing her facility for knockabout physical comedy (and willingness to make herself look ridiculous) is undiminished at the age of 48.
The hefty McCarthy throws her weight around to considerable comic effect, and few actresses could pull off a scene where her Dirty Harriet-style cop proudly shows off a well-stocked armory in her refrigerator.
She also comes equipped with the most dysfunctional Boston family since “The Fighter,’’ including Jane Curtin (under-used as her mother) and Michael Rapaport as a brother she sent to jail for dealing drugs.
This helps humanize McCarthy’s character — which while far from gentle is less abrasive and obnoxious than McCarthy’s sociopathic role in “Identity Thief.’’
Third-billed Mexican actor Demián Bichir (an Oscar nominee for “A Better Life’’) has little to do but act exasperated or bemused as Bullock’s agent’s FBI boss, while fourth-billed Marlon Wayans, as another FBI agent, apparently had most of his scenes land on the cutting-room floor.
The movie’s standard-issue villains are even less interesting, but that doesn’t matter much.
This is Bullock and McCarthy’s show, and Feig gives them plenty of room to do their things. (Even if, like most veterans of the Judd Apatow atelier, he tends to let scenes run on a bit too long.)
“The Heat,’’ which provides enough opportunity for wholesale mayhem as well as laughs, is pretty much a guaranteed crowd-pleaser. Small wonder that Fox has already ordered up a sequel for this inspired female comedy team.
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