Jackson Free Press

"The Heat" isn't for people who are disturbed by four-letter words or candid discussions on the pros and cons of Spanx. If Spanx is a five-letter word you never heard of before, then you will definitely be squeezed into a new direction in this film directed by Paul Fieg ("Bridesmaids"), starring the bosom-buddy cop team of Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy.

In an impromptu undercover operation, Boston cop Mullins (McCarthy) tries to get Special Agent Ashburn (Bullock) dressed for the part by reworking her conservative pinstriped suit into something appropriately fetching for the lackey of a drug lord. The jacket gets removed. The shirtsleeves get ripped. After sheering the slacks into hot pants, Mullins points to the flesh-colored underwear that Ashburn is wearing and demands clarification. Ashburn's chokes out: "They're Spanx. ... They hold everything together." A bit mystified, Mullins bursts out: "Why? What's gonna come popping out?"

In this film, you never know what's going to come popping out of Mullins' foul-mouth, and frankly, it's hysterical. It's raunchy, rude, crude and not for all moviegoers, but gut-bustingly funny, because McCarthy's Mullins lacks a filter, and Bullock's Ashburn lobs back the jokes with the ease of a master straight man.

Except for the opening scene, where Ashburn engages in obvious and unsubtle brown-nosing techniques in New York, the core action takes place in Boston, which is strictly Mullins' territory. Mullins scares her co-workers, shames her boss on the size of his manly parts and doesn't play well with others. Ashburn is the perfect partner for Mullins, because she's alienated all members of the FBI teams except the boss, who has a soft spot for her old fashioned charm.

"The Heat" is a movie without fuss. The movie formula is blatant, and the conclusion is obvious. But Fieg's fluid direction accounts, in part, for the warmth and likeableness of the performances of McCarthy and Bullock. These two ladies are at the top of their comedic game.

This film has the matter-of-fact, one-thing-after-another pitter patter of an 
R-rated Abbott and Costello movie, but this time we have a feminized version. Well, it's half feminized, because one of the running jokes is Mullins and her doppelganger at the local bar. The tension that keeps the movie spinning forward is that we have a nice cop, who's not really all that likeable, and mean cop, who is really pretty sweet under all the bravado.

While, at times, the comedy drains away and leaves only tawdriness, these two actors are better than the material. Many parts of this film have a shocking comic power because of the chemistry between Bullock and McCarthy. These two have the conversational rhythm of best friends. It's good, at times bad and definitely ugly when Mullins' opts for the ball-busting approach to interrogation.

The story takes shape after the bonding bender at the local dive bar. The ladies chug. They hug. They dance, and they get to know each other's weaknesses. Ashburn's weakness is obvious; no one likes a prissy, self-serving braggart. She lugs around her trophies for support. Mullins snitched on her brother and had him imprisoned for dealing drugs. Her family wants nothing to do with her, but she's a family girl at heart.

The film maintains a quick tempo. The dialogue lifts the filter from the banal into curses of fun. It is the best-bosom buddy flick of an epic popcorn movie summer. (Admittedly, there hasn't been another "bosom" buddy flick this summer). Moviegoers agree. It stomped out the competition at the box office this weekend. It took "White House Down" ... down.

You go girls!