The Heat - 3 smiles

The main reason to see “The Heat,” a cop-buddy movie with women, is the explosive chemistry between its stars Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy. The story is fairly predictable and the violence sometimes jarring, but director Paul Feig (whose best known for Bridesmaids) has created a new genre amidst the testosterone-stuffed summer blockbusters and the smartest thing he did was to pair his two stars. McCarthy has scenes that prove she can act as well as be laugh-out-loud funny. It also gives her Sandra Bullock, a comedian of equal skill but of completely different style and manner, to play off of. They’re wonderful together.

Bullock is Sarah Ashburn, an uptight New York FBI agent, hated by her peers and pushing for a promotion. Her boss (Demian Bichir) sends her to Boston to see if she can work with others in a case that shares jurisdiction with the local police department. Ashburn’s experiences in early scenes efficiently set up a theme that will be revisited throughout the movie, which is the routine sexism that women must contend with in professional situations. Though Ashburn is smarter than her colleagues, she still has to endure their overt condescension and thinly veiled resentment. Once she gets to Boston, Ashburn encounters another lady cop on the case, brassy, bawdy Shannon Mullins (McCarthy), who’s cleaning up her neighborhood one scumbag at a time. The two certainly don’t get off on the right foot, but soon they realize their outlaw-apprehending talents are complementary and they reluctantly join forces. “The Heat” is a crude, low-brow audience-pleaser that you won’t want to miss. 6/29/13