Review : The Heat

The Heat :  One of the FBI Special Agents is paired to work her worst nightmare, A foul-mouthed Boston cop who's methods don't make the two of them, see eye to eye. Together they must work to take down a ruthless gangster. 

Hello Film Lovers

Welcome to today's film review by me Dr.Film. Today I will be reviewing Paul Feig's 'The Heat' starring first class actress Sandra Bullock, and the wonderfully funny Melissa McCarthy.

Paul Feig obviously well known as the director of 'Bridesmaids' which is another good film, so he's a director who certainly knows his stuff, in terms of how a film is made, and how a film can be made his way.

Anyway, The Heat is a Cop comedy, mainly set in Bostern, and the outline of it, to me It just appealed to me as an American version of Hot Fuzz. Speaking as a person who loved Hot Fuzz, to have something remotely similar is great. But The Heat doesn't copy Hot Fuzz, it is it's own story. Which I'll go into detail about, as I talk about this film.


At first I wasn't all that bothered about seeing this film, I thought it was going to be a bit rubbish. Having said that what aroused my sto go and see it, was I liked the storyline and I sort of thought, 'oh well this film, can sort of be like a guilty pleasure.' So I went along, saw it in the cinema, and I enjoyed it. It wasn't a brilliant film. But it was funny, the laughs were there. So The Heat is yet another melodramatic comedy which plays on it's laughs within the story.



The Storyline: Sarah Ashburn (Sandra Bullock), an FBI agent, is extremely ambitious about the way she works and has her eye on a big promotion, which could boost her career. The trouble she faces is, she's not a team player, and she's not popular around the office, with the other agents.

She is sent down to Boston to uncover the identity of an elusive gangster known as, Mr. Larkin who's identity is anonymous, to help track down his proxy, Rojas, Ashburn is told that she'll have a good shot at the promotion if she finds Larkin, and brings him and his corrupt business down. When she arrives in Boston, she learns that Larkin has been eliminating his competition and taking over their operations. She also learns that Rojas is in Boston PD custody and goes to see him to ask him what he knows about Larkin, but is warned that the cop who arrested Rojas, Shannon Mullins (Malissa McCarthy), has a short temper and is very territorial, and also not exactly sociable.

When the two of them first meet in the interview room, matters get out of hand and start off on the wrong foot, and don't get along at all. However When Mullins learns why Ashburn is in Boston, she decides that she is going to find Larkin herself. It is then that both Ashburn and Mullins are pitted to work together to solve the case. The two of them know that working together, won't be an easy task, but because Ashburn does things by the book and Mullins does things her way. The two of them end up being, a very good team. Bit like Mike and Sulley in Monsters University. Mike's the clever one where as Sulley is dynamic in his own way.

There's lots of great, back to back action and humour in this story. The action is not so much in your face, it's not to very much concentrated in anyway to stand out, because the director knows all action sequences will just stand out. no matter what the situation presents. The humour is very much touch and go, sometimes jokes that I found not funny at all, then there were others which were laugh out loud, hilarious. So easy touch and go.

I thought the way the two leading roles presented their characters were interesting, I liked Sandra Bullock's sensibility at the start and how she turns into this hot action girl. Same goes for Malissa McCarthy, she started off as being the tough nut, and by the end is actually a lot more sensitive.

I thought the twist, was good. I won't give it away, to protect the privacy of people who haven't seen 'The Heat' yet and would like to. But yeah, It has a great twist in it, which is good.

On a bit of a negative, this film didn't have as much potential. I thought that there would of been a bit more to the story, though additional development was there, there wasn't much equal depth to the leading characters or back story.

Also there's false indication of relationships between Sandra Bullock and a colleague she works with. there's no idea of what's going on between them, you can tell she likes him, and by the end of the film you can sort of tell she likes him, but there's no clear indication, which overall means the film makes no sense, so what was the point of keeping that in. mainly for soppy sentimentality so some of the audience could go 'Aww, will they or won't they?' when it didn't have much to do with the story.

Other than that 'The Heat' is very touch and go as a film. I like it, just feel it lacks something as a comedy and it's not a hard hitting action thriller. It's a guilty pleasure of mine, to which reminds me of another film I like, and has great performances from the leading characters and that is all.

I will say that 'The Heat' gets 6/10 - not brilliant but then again not awful.

Thank you for reading this review.

NEXT TIME : I'll review 'The Inbetweeners Movie' - Another interesting film, for which I have mixed views upon. I will review that feature film on Wednesday the 14th of August 2013.