What is this, Training Day?

The Heat

(2013)

I suppose it’s good and all to get a female buddy cop movie, one that turns out to be a big hit, as studios continue to slowly recognise there’s an eager demographic they haven’t been catering for. Except that it’s not so good when that movie is as tiresome as The Heat. Sure, it’s nothing new for the genre to coast on star appeal rather than anything approaching a robust and well-written script with gags that are other than improvised (or ticking all the gross out boxes that are so “Dawn of Apatow”, but really post-Farrellys). But is that really a worthy goal? Was anyone really satisfied with this, lazily relying on the resurging cachet of Sandy Buttocks and Melissa McCarthy’s see-her-in-anything window? Director Paul Feig certainly shouldn’t be, since it’s a massive step down from his movie-career making and McCarthy’s star making Bridesmaids.

The broad genre-plundering comedy often comes unstuck, refraining from Naked Gun-esque wholesale self-consciousness but settling instead on threadbare plots and fancy dress. Murphy’s first couple of cop outings succeeded because they threw his persona into vaguely plausible surroundings. The alternative is to play it large, which often means just going for lazy shit; see Police Academy. The Heat has far more in common with that than even the broadest of recent entries in the genre (Rush Hour, for example). 21 Jump Street surfs similar territory of tonal largess, but is much more focussed in terms of targets and plotting (and much funnier).

It would be churlish to begrudge the leads this success. Bullock’s never had much in the way of quality control but, as nice as it is to see an actress into her 50s pulling audiences on star power alone, it has to be acknowledged that the main reason this did so well is McCarthy. Like any number of comedians (and comediennes) getting their first taste of big screen success, audiences currently can’t get enough of her. Let me rephrase that; US audiences currently can’t get enough of her. Yes, it’s the turbulent time some US comics have internationally. Both Bullock and McCarthy had another hit movie each last year. Sandy in the Oscar-nominated worldwide smash Gravity. McCarthy had Identity Thief, which was only really seen in the States. The Heat did okay internationally, but took significantly less than half its homegrown plunder. And, while it’s going swimmingly for McCarthy right now, it can’t be long before she has her Cable Guy moment. It’s inevitable. Feig clearly thinks she’s gold dust, as he’s lining up – yes – a spy spoof next. No doubt McCarthy will fart and belch and saying revolting things while making a virtue of lacking the average spy’s athleticism as she proves she really is a very good agent.

She comes up with some decent routines here, but there are more that miss the target. That’s inevitable when you have an improv-inclined director letting the camera run and run (Feig also makes a cameo). The plot is peanuts; McCarthy’s slobbish cop (but a good cop!) and Bullock’s anal FBI agent (but a good FBI agent!) team up for a comedy of differences in order to nail the nefarious drug lord. Inevitably they become best of chums. McCarthy stole the show in Bridesmaids (as wonderful as Kristen Wiig is in EVERYTHING), but part of that was a result of bringing her down-to-earth, salty rotundity to a proper character-based comedy. Here, she and Bullock are supported by the thinnest of crutches so the rest of the movie, on her part at least, is a lot of shouting and saying “Look at me!” even when it (frequently) isn’t adding anything.

The movie’s at its worst when it’s indulgent, not because it goes beyond taste boundaries but because it tries too hard to shock or offend or just plain doesn’t know when to shout cut. There’s a severed tongue protruding from a victim’s arse, a dance montage to Groove in the Heart that’s interminable (which may be the point, but it isn’t endearing), a tracheotomy that is textbook-mistaking gross-out for always funny. Likewise, there’s something distastefully desperate about attempts to eke laughs from the bad guy getting shot in the dick twice. At least Robocop had some context. And then there are the awful music montages, the lazy moviemaker’s first port of call. Unfortunately Bullock gets the worst line, their mission statement, dreadfully delivered (“We’re the fucking Heat!”)

McCarthy does have a string of good lines, but they don’t make a good movie. You can see from the extensive outtakes she’ll try anything, which is fair enough. It’s Feig’s job to make them coherent. So the best include “Who closes the door to take a shit?”, “Who’s your wife? A five pound bag of flour with a hole in it?” (if in doubt, come up with an obscure minority to offend; in this case albinos); “Are you okay? You look really pale”), “It’s cheese. Cheese doesn’t go bad”. And I enjoyed her taking down a drug dealer with a watermelon (“See? I told you you was a racist!”) I also kind of did like the stabbing in the leg (“I’ve got to put it back in!”), even if it qualifies as whoring for grossness.

A few of the supporting cast get a look in. Thomas F. Wilson (Biff Tannen) plays the overburdened, rather than shouty, police captain, and Dan Bakkedahl has fun as the albino cop. Tony Hale wishes he'd steered clear of hookers. Michael Rapaport is still getting work, it seems. There’s also a subdued Marlon Wayans on winning form (although take a look at the outtakes and you’ll quickly find yourself reconsidering his charms). You won’t care about the villains, or who their boss guy is, though. You wont even care when a terribly forced moment causes our buddies to fall out, only to make up five minutes later.

McCarthy clearly revels in this kind of mediocrity, and because of her “Don’t give a shit” attitude comes out of it fairly unaffected (other than the cumulative message not to go and see another of her crappy movies). It’s Sandy I feel for. She’s such a good sport, and strolls through all the crudity and obscene language like a trooper, but it isn’t really her thing. Not that she needs to go off and purify herself with a romcom, but the effect isn’t so much one of mucking in as being dragged down to the level of Feig, McCarthy, et al. On the other hand, the prospect of McCarthy sharing a scene with Jason Statham (in the forthcoming Spy) just seems perfect. Of course, it will most likely also go on about 40 minutes longer than necessary.

Your Mickey Mouse is one big stupid dope!

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If I do nothing else, I will convince them that Herbert Stempel knows what won the goddam Academy Award for Best goddam Picture of 1955. That’s what I’m going to accomplish.

Quiz Show (1994) (SPOILERS) Quiz Show perfectly encapsulates a certain brand of Best Picture nominee: the staid, respectable, diligent historical episode, a morality tale in response to which the Academy can nod their heads approvingly and discerningly, feeding as it does their own vainglorious self-image about how times and attitudes have changed, in part thanks to their own virtuousness. Robert Redford’s film about the 1950s Twenty-One quiz show scandals is immaculately made, boasts a notable cast and is guided by a strong screenplay from Paul Attanasio (who, on television, had just created the seminal Homicide: Life on the Streets ), but it lacks that something extra that pushes it into truly memorable territory.

No one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself.

The Matrix (1999) (SPOILERS) Twenty years on, and the articles are on the defining nature of The Matrix are piling up, most of them touching on how its world has become a reality, or maybe always was one. At the time, its premise was engaging enough, but it was the sum total of the package that cast a spell – the bullet time, the fashions, the soundtrack, the comic book-as-live-action framing and styling – not to mention it being probably the first movie to embrace and reflect the burgeoning Internet ( Hackers doesn’t really count), and subsequently to really ride the crest of the DVD boom wave. And now? Now it’s still really, really good.

Other monks will meet their deaths here. And they too will have blackened fingers. And blackened tongues.

The Name of the Rose (1986) (SPOILERS) Umberto Eco wasn’t awfully impressed by Jean Jacques-Annaud’s adaptation of his novel – or “ palimpsest of Umberto Eco’s novel ” as the opening titles announce – to the extent that he nixed further movie versions of his work. Later, he amended that view, calling it “ a nice movie ”. He also, for balance, labelled The Name of the Rose his worst novel – “ I hate this book and I hope you hate it too ”. Essentially, he was begrudging its renown at the expense of his later “ superior ” novels. I didn’t hate the novel, although I do prefer the movie, probably because I saw it first and it was everything I wanted from a medieval Sherlock Holmes movie set in a monastery and devoted to forbidden books, knowledge and opinions.

Say hello to the Scream Extractor.

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All the world will be your enemy, Prince with a Thousand Enemies.

Watership Down (1978) (SPOILERS) I only read Watership Down recently, despite having loved the film from the first, and I was immediately impressed with how faithful, albeit inevitably compacted, Martin Rosen’s adaptation is. It manages to translate the lyrical, mythic and metaphysical qualities of Richard Adams’ novel without succumbing to dumbing down or the urge to cater for a broader or younger audience. It may be true that parents are the ones who get most concerned over the more disturbing elements of the picture but, given the maturity of the content, it remains a surprise that, as with 2001: A Space Odyssey (which may on the face of it seem like an odd bedfellow), this doesn’t garner a PG certificate. As the makers noted, Watership Down is at least in part an Exodus story, but the biblical implications extend beyond Hazel merely leading his fluffle to the titular promised land. There is a prevalent spiritual dimension to this rabbit universe, one very much

Piece by piece, the camel enters the couscous.

The Forgiven (2021) (SPOILERS) By this point, the differences between filmmaker John Michael McDonagh and his younger brother, filmmaker and playwright Martin McDonagh, are fairly clearly established. Both wear badges of irreverence and provocation in their writing, and a willingness to tackle – or take pot-shots – at bigger issues, ones that may find them dangling their toes in hot water. But Martin receives the lion’s share of the critical attention, while John is generally recognised as the slightly lesser light. Sure, some might mistake Seven Psychopaths for a John movie, and Calvary for a Martin one, but there’s a more flagrant sense of attention seeking in John’s work, and concomitantly less substance. The Forgiven is clearly aiming more in the expressly substantial vein of John’s earlier Calvary, but it ultimately bears the same kind of issues in delivery.

He tasks me. He tasks me, and I shall have him.

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In a few moments, you will have an experience that will seem completely real. It will be the result of your subconscious fears transformed into your conscious awareness.

Brainstorm (1983) (SPOILERS) Might Brainstorm have been the next big thing – a ground-breaking, game-changing cinematic spectacle that had as far reaching consequences as Star Wars (special effects) or Avatar (3D) – if only Douglas Trumbull had been allowed to persevere with his patented “Showscan” process (70mm film photographed and projected at 60 frames per second)? I suspect not; one only has to look at the not-so-far-removed experiment of Ang Lee with Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk , and how that went down like a bag of cold sick, to doubt that any innovation will necessarily catch on (although Trumbull at least had a narrative hinge on which to turn his “more real than real” imagery, whereas Lee’s pretty much boiled down to “because it was there”). Brainstorm ’s story is, though, like its title, possibly too cerebral, too much concerned with the consciousness and touting too little of the cloyingly affirmative that Bruce Rubin inevitably brings to his screenplays. T

They say if we go with them, we'll live forever. And that's good.

Cocoon (1985) Anyone coming across Cocoon cold might reasonably assume the involvement of Steven Spielberg in some capacity. This is a sugary, well-meaning tale of age triumphing over adversity. All thanks to the power of aliens. Substitute the elderly for children and you pretty much have the manner and Spielberg for Ron Howard and you pretty much have the approach taken to Cocoon . Howard is so damn nice, he ends up pulling his punches even on the few occasions where he attempts to introduce conflict to up the stakes. Pauline Kael began her review by expressing the view that consciously life-affirming movies are to be consciously avoided. I wouldn’t go quite that far, but you’re definitely wise to steel yourself for the worst (which, more often than not, transpires). Cocoon is as dramatically inert as the not wholly dissimilar (but much more disagreeable, which is saying something) segment of Twilight Zone: The Movie directed by Spielberg ( Kick the Can ). There

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

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