The last time Sandra Bullock played an FBI agent was in 2005's Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous, you know, the dreadful sequel that absolutely wasn't.
The Heat is worse.
Ashburn (Sandra Bullock) is an uptight, humourless, winy FBI agent who is forced to work with local, disgusting, don't-give-a-damn cop Mullins (Melissa McCarthy). Ashburn wants a promotion, Mullins wants to get around to eating last week's sandwich, while Ashburn's boss, Hale (Demian Bichir), just wants them to get along. It's a fairly typical buddy cop set-up that is a blend of Bad Boys and Bridesmaids and, no, the combination doesn't work here.
Billed as a comedy, it's very obvious what its intentions are and, to be fair, a few people did chuckle occasionally. If I'm honest, I also laughed quietly twice. It just took almost two hours to reach the funniest line ("I left the kid in the car." – it's all in the delivery) and the amusing final scene that followed it.
Is it just that I don't have a sense of humour? Nope. I watched the original The Hangover three times in a week with different friends and laughed out loud every time. Sightseers absolutely rocked my boat. The Guard, In Bruges, Moonrise Kingdom
Okay, I accept some of those might be regarded as 'black' or 'quirky' but if you want slapstick, puerile comedy that gels, The Goon worked perfectly.
The Heat just isn't funny most of the time.
Mostly it's codswallop that tries too hard to be funny rather than relying on the natural skills of the performers who can be funny. Everything is so staged, so obvious and has all the panache of a frying pan in the face. In one tragically awful scene, the injured Ashburn attempts to control her wheelchair in an empty corridor with one hand while holding a gun in the other. Rather than put the gun in her lap and use both hands to move at speed, she opts to slither along the floor while pushing the gun ahead of her a couple of feet at a time. What was director Paul Feig thinking? It's not funny, there is not thought given to reason. It's just plain stupid and that was reflected by the silence of the audience.
Predictably, there are rumours of a sequel. God help us. The Heat may be at McCarthy's level but Bullock is worth a great deal more than this. Here's hoping the impending Gravity, with George Clooney, doesn't pull her down further.
For more reviews from The Squiss, subscribe to my blog and like the Facebook page.
عرض المزيد 