The Heat

FLIX!

Uptight over-achieving FBI special agent Sarah Ashburn (Sandra Bullock) has to leave the New York office and go to Boston. She needs to catch a drug lord, and her next promotion depends on it. She is very by-the-book and is not liked by any of her co-workers. While in Boston she encounters foul-mouthed Boston Police Detective Shannon Mullins (Melissa McCarthy) and they could not be more incompatible. But through a weird turn of events, they end up having to work on the case together. And therein lies the fun.

But even before that team-up, this movie is fun. Sandra Bullock in the scenes before she leaves for Boston are fun. Melissa McCarthy is a scream the entire time she is on the screen.

Shannon Mullins is not liked by anyone, anymore than Sarah Ashburn is. Detective Mullins is hated by her own family for having arresting her own brother Jason (Michael Rappaport) who has recently gotten out of prison.

I won't go on and on about the storyline, because honestly, it's pretty standard stuff. Not to say it isn't funny. Because it is. This movie is a laugh riot from beginning to end. Melissa McCarthy is wonderful, but so is Sandra Bullock. The scene in a barroom when Detective Mullins is leading the way is terrific. The stuff they do with scotch tape is hysterical. The way they dance with old guys....it's just funny stuff.

And to add icing to the cake there is a small but great cast around these two. Besides the aforementioned Michael Rappaport, there is Tom Wilson (Biff in Back to the Future) as Mullins' Capt. Woods, Michael McDonald (MAD TV) as bad-guy Julian, Marlon Wayans as FBI Agent Levy, Demian Bichir (of Weeds fame) as FBI boss Hale, and Jane Curtin (Saturday Night Live) as Mrs. Mullins.

This movie did everything I want a movie to do. It entertained me for an hour and a half and justified what we paid for Pop, Popcorn, and the wife's must-have Cotton Candy. Many times it was like watching a Don Rickles performance. You want to see it again to catch the stuff you were laughing through the first time. Plus it is a buddy picture that features women in an even-handed way. Through all the zaniness we still care about them and understand that though they are both loners, they are both people that deserve respect, love, and happiness.

This was a fun movie and easy to write about. I loved it.