Comedy/Action. Sandra Bullock, Melissa McCarthy, Demian Bichir, Michael Rapaport, Marlon Wayans, Taran Killam, Dan Bakkedahl. Director: Paul Feig.
Two years ago, Bridesmaids wooed UK audiences with the wickedly foul-mouthed antics of 36-something women behaving badly.
Paul Feig's hysterical film was nominated for two Oscars, including a richly deserved nod for Melissa McCarthy as Best Supporting Actress with her unforgettable portrayal of a raunchy singleton desperate to get her man. Any man. McCarthy's comic whirlwind blows to gale force ten once again in The Heat, an oestrogen-fuelled buddy cop caper that proves ladies can be every bit as politically incorrect and rough 'n' tumble as the lads.
In a rare instance of perfect casting, she is paired with Oscar winner Sandra Bullock, who is one of the few A-list actresses willing and, more importantly, able to humiliate herself on screen for our amusement.
The two leads spark off each other brilliantly, milking belly laughs from Katie Dippold's hit-and-miss script that both embraces and subverts hoary cliches of the genre.
Every time the joke of the mismatched heroines threatens to wear thin, Bullock and McCarthy crank up the slapstick and verbal one-upwomanship, including a brilliantly simple visual gag with a knife that draws as many winces as guffaws.
FBI Special Agent Sarah Ashburn (Bullock) is one of the brightest operatives in the New York field office run by Hale (Demian Bichir). Unfortunately, her lack of people skills rubs colleagues up the wrong way. Hale dispatches Sarah to Boston, promising her promotion if she can work with the local detectives to bring down an enigmatic drug kingpin named Larkin.
"You do well with this, we can talk about the job," he promises.
In Boston, Sarah clashes with rebel cop Shannon Mullins (Melissa McCarthy), who has bullied the men at her precinct into cowering submission. Sarah refuses to submit to Shannon's intimidation but knows that she must work with this loose cannon for the sake of promotion. So the two women reluctantly join forces to unmask Larkin. Unfortunately, their haphazard tactics jeopardise a long-running undercover operation masterminded by DEA agents Adam (Taran Killam) and Craig (Dan Bakkedahl).
If the litmus test for any comedy is how much you laugh out loud then The Heat sizzles. Bullock and McCarthy are a formidable double-act, the latter spitting in the eye of subtlety as she bulldozes through supporting cast, cackling as grown men tumble in her wake. Initial rivalry between the characters mellows, somewhat inevitably, into sisterly solidarity, adding a sentimental sheen to closing frames.
First-time feature scriptwriter Dippold doesn't know how to handle a lukewarm romantic subplot between Sarah and nice guy Levy (Marlon Wayans), so that particular strand remains frustratingly underdeveloped.
Bullock is capable of a lot more, and after Miss Congeniality and The Blind Side we have come to expect far greater depth from her performances. But the mix of the two characters together does work nicely and makes for a memorable screen duo, despite the fact the movie never really goes anywhere. A little more depth on a woman's struggle in the work place would have been nice.
Action/Comedy/Romance. Bruce Willis, John Malkovich, Helen Mirren, Mary-Louise Parker, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Lee Byung-hun, Sir Anthony Hopkins, Neal McDonough, David Thewlis. Director: Dean Parisot.
You can teach old dogs new tricks, or so it seems in RED 2, the action-packed sequel to the uproarious 2010 comedy about a team of retired assassins, who merrily kick butt and run rings around highly-trained agents 30 years their junior.
Dean Parisot's testosterone-fuelled caper is a hugely entertaining and polished piece of nonsense, which ramps up the action sequences as the lean and preposterous plot ricochets between Paris, London and Moscow at dizzying speed.
The dream team of Bruce Willis, John Malkovich and Helen Mirren lock and load once again with giddy abandon, also welcoming celebrated Korean actor Lee Byung-hun to the fray, whose martial arts skills allow for some terrific sequences of hand-to-hand combat in bone-crunching close-up.
Screenwriters Jon and Erich Hoeber, who penned the original, mix comedy and explosions with a dash of romance, garnished with Sir Anthony Hopkins reliving his Hannibal Lecter glory days as a mentally unstable scientist with a dark secret.
The incendiary cocktail goes down a treat, delivering big laughs without needing to engage your brain too much to keep track of the usual array of crosses, double-crosses and sly twists.
RED 2 opens at a wholesale grocery store where retired CIA operative Frank Moses (Willis) is enjoying domestic life with girlfriend Sarah (Mary-Louise Parker), who craves excitement in their relationship.
So she is delighted when Frank's sartorially challenged former associate, Marvin Boggs (Malkovich), pops up unexpectedly in the adjacent aisle.
"You haven't killed anybody in months!" Marvin protests to his pal.
"That's not a bad thing," counters Frank.
Marvin's re-appearance coincides with a dastardly plot involving US government agent Jack Horton (Neal McDonough), Russian secret agent Katja (Catherine Zeta-Jones) and an enigmatic figure known as The Frog (David Thewlis). Frank, Marvin and Sarah go on the run for their lives with Chinese contract killer Han Jo-bae (Byung-hun) in hot pursuit. Stylish assassin Victoria (Mirren) telephones Frank to let him know that British intelligence have also hired her to put a bullet through his head.
Surrounded by people they can't trust, Frank, Sarah and Marvin embark on a madcap globe-trotting mission in search of answers, which leads them to a covert exercise codename Operation Nightshade and its doddery creator (Hopkins).
Based on the DC Comics series of the same name, RED 2 delivers as many thrills and spills as its predecessor, with tongue wedged firmly in cheek. The leads destroy swathes of each European capital as they search for answers, armed with an arsenal of droll one-liners.
