The Heat

It sounds like a variation on the most familiar of cinematic formulas. A motormouthed local street cop reluctantly teams up with a straitlaced federal investigator to bring down a notorious drug dealer.

The twist that brings freshness to The Heat is the fact that both of its lead characters are women, and strong ones at that. During a time when Hollywood seems so devoid of original ideas for female characters, that seems downright audacious.

In particular, the comedy showcases the versatility of Melissa McCarthy, who teams up again with director Paul Feig (Bridesmaids) and steals the show with her portrayal of a wisecracking Boston cop who spews profanities like a sailor and has a foul temperament that frightens both her superiors and her suspects.

The mismatched chemistry between McCarthy and co-star Sandra Bullock drives the film for the first hour before its gimmick wears off and it eventually falls apart amid a slew of buddy-cop cliches.

Bullock plays Sarah, a by-the-book FBI agent who is assigned by her boss (Demian Bechir) to bring down a narcotics ring, with a promotion possibly hanging in the balance. So she heads to Boston and runs into Mullins (McCarthy) a streetwise detective who doesn’t bother with proper procedure when it comes to enforcing the laws of her neighborhood.

Naturally, their styles are polar opposites and their backgrounds clash, but the two women must put aside those differences and become partners in order to solve the case.

Bullock and McCarthy seem to be in perfect sync with one another here, and they’re helped by rookie screenwriter Katie Dippold, whose script gives depth to the characters and supplies an amusing batch of one-liners. However, its attempts to get poignant through female bonding and companionship feel forced and obvious. And there’s not much meaningful attempt to explore or satirize issues involving gender in contemporary police work at either the federal or the local level.

The film stumbles down the stretch when it gets entangled in the convoluted mechanics of a crime plot that wasn’t very intriguing to begin with. When the laughs start to dwindle, so does the energy, and The Heat considerably cools off.

Rated R, 117 minutes.