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Created Jul 13, 2013 02:38AM PST • Edited Jun 18, 2017 03:22PM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Great 4.0

   The Heat brings the laughs, as it should. The nastiness too, as it must, nasty humor being the currency of today’s hit comedies. The Heat is rolling in that smack. How funny is this movie? 75% LOL. More if you can still hear between your own convulsive laughter and the theater-sized laugh party all around you.

   Normal for today’s Hard R comedies, some of the shit is funny for being incomprehensible or outrageous. Fortunately the bizarre stuff mostly just gets described, albeit in the most extreme terms possible.

   Most of the filth gets spewed from a female mouth, adding to the wow factor. Melissa McCarthy is one world-class spewer. The woman delivers raunchy lines like a drunken linebacker. Most of the lines in the movie are hers and she slays with almost all, making her a one-woman plus-size laugh-storm. She-it yeah.

   Sandra Bullock isn’t wasted by any stretch, though she does get wasted with Melissa McCarthy in a series of increasingly funny dive-bar shots, to pick one very funny example amongst many.

   Bullock has been a major star for so long now that she’s earned the right to carry less than half a movie. It’s a subtle form of moviestar appreciation to enjoy a great one later in her career, when all she’s gotta do is deliver a dozen scenes. Sandra Bullock slays with half those, making The Heat a movie with half-a-dozen killer Sandra Bullock scenes. Reason enough to see it right there.

   Paul Feig uses her deftly, including frozen in a picture holding a horrified fat-cat. Even the cat rejects her. Feig demonstrated how to best use Melissa McCarthy when she was the funniest thing in his Bridesmaids. McCarthy’s intervening pictures? Nevermind.¹

   The Heat spends most of the time in the gutter, hilariously so, making it a near criminal delight. No joke.
   -———————

   ¹ Memo to McCarthy: Stay with Feig.

4. Acting

   Great 4.0

   Sandra Bullock & Melissa McCarthy are perfectly mismatched buddies, an odd couple for the ages. Much of the movie’s fun is watching how they squabble and ultimately work together.

   The big news of their pairing is that they get equal billing, even if Bullock got paid more than McCarthy. Nonetheless, MM is an above-the-title star now, deservedly so. Unfortunately she looks to be larger than ever. Let’s hope she catches herself before doing a complete Farley or even half a Belushi.

   Their male supporting cast is less impressive than the other women. First the guys.

   • Demián Bichir as a drug cartel middle manager.
   • Marlon Wayans as an eager FBI agent. This is a remarkably straight role for Wayans, so much so that it hardly seems like him.
   • Michael Rapaport as a screw-up brother.
   • Spoken Reasons as a street hood.

   Now the gals.

   • Jane Curtin as a hardass Mom.
   • Jessica Chaffin & Jamie Denbo as dim girlfriends with too much luggage. Turns out Chaffin and Denbo are a longstanding comedy team called Ronna & Beverly.

5. Male Stars Very Good 3.5

6. Female Stars Really Great 4.5

7. Female Costars Great 4.0

8. Male Costars Good 3.0

10. Film

    Great 4.0

    Director Paul Feig is getting the lion’s share of behind-the-camera credit for The Heat, understandably because the director does, especially when he used the breakout star so effectively in his previous movie. Katie Dippold deserves to dip her beak in that chalice however, and not just a little bit. Her script slays.

    Dippold plus Feig have created a film demonstrably better than Bridesmaids.

    Sharp-eyed viewers will observe a bunch of movie allusions: Shrek 2 and Training Day to name two.

11. Direction Great 4.0

12. Play Great 4.0

    “We’re the fucking Heat.” Of course you are, and it’s about time you said so.

    That said, the Spanx bit was perhaps the funniest in the movie. Told that they hold everything together, MM exclaims “You mean medically!!”

    Katie Dippold wrote all this shit. She looks sweet, but is either very sick or has the ability to channel filth like a Porn Medium. Wonder which it is?

13. Music Very Good 3.5

14. Visuals Very Good 3.5
15. Content

16. Edge

    Sordid 2.8

    Verbal porn. The movie’s full of incomprehensible and outrageous bits that are so far over-the-top and so sexually amped up, there is no other way to characterize their inspiration.

17. Sex Titillating 1.7

18. Violence Brutal 2.6

19. Rudeness Nasty 4.1

21. Reality

    Surreal 2.5

    Surreal. Deeply surreal. Get that? Shit like this don’t happen in real life. Not even close.

22. Circumstantial Surreal 2.8

23. Biological Surreal 2.6

24. Physical Surreal 2.2