Review: 'The Heat' take title—of comedy film of the year

MANILA, Philippines - Melissa McCarthy might just be the funniest woman in Hollywood right now.

Earlier this year, she made a cameo in the “Hangover 3” and it was probably the only shining moment of the entire film. In director Paul Feig’s “The Heat”, McCarthy is all out hilarious as one-half of a buddy-cop duo along with Academy Award-winning actress Sandra Bullock.

“The Heat” follows FBI Special Agent Sarah Ashburn (Bullock) as she tracks down a drug lord in Boston who isn’t too squeamish about cutting out the competition. To do that, however, she’ll need the help of Shannon Mullins (McCarthy) whose technique might not exactly be standard procedure.

Mullins is not afraid to dish out the insults no matter how personal and no matter the person—and that includes her boss Boston PD Chief Captain Frank Woods (Thomas F. Wilson). On the other hand, Ashburn is the type to value high grades as much as other people’s pets. Up for promotion but hated by her colleagues, she knows how important the case is for her career and she reluctantly follows Mullins’ lead.

But it’s not all comedy for McCarthy as she displays some dramatic acting chops in scenes that involve her family. She even takes some bumps early in the film and it gives one the feeling that McCarthy is willing to go to great lengths to entertain.

Feig, who worked with McCarthy in her breakout film “Bridesmaids,” said that the idea of casting the actress came to him 15 pages into reading the script for “The Heat”.

“On Bridesmaids, Melissa became my hero,” Feig says.  “The script, which was already hilarious, got ten times funnier when I read it while imagining Melissa as Mullins.  Melissa will commit to a role so hardcore it will shock you. It’s hard to realize that it’s Melissa inside that character.”

Bullock, on the other hand, is no stranger to comedy and playing the role of an FBI agent. Her chemistry with McCarthy simply comes naturally onscreen and apparently, some of the scenes were improvised by the two.

As buddy-cop films go, Bullock and McCarthy prove that it need not always be men in the central roles. They can do the stunts as well as their male counterparts and their impeccable comedic timing brings something totally new to the genre.

Unexpected would truly be the operative word to describe “The Heat” and it goes without saying that it might just be the runaway winner for comedy film of the year.

“The Heat” opens across Philippine theatres today from 20th Century Fox and distributed by Warner Bros.