Open Letters Monthly: The Heat

It's a tale as old as cinema itself. Uptight, straight-laced officer of the law goes to city to solve a major crime and is paired up with an eccentric, potentially insane local officer. Personalities clash, but their shared dedication to the law rallies them into working together and saving the day. It's the formula for every buddy cop movie in existence. But those cops have never (to my knowledge) both been women, as is the case in Paul Feig's The Heat.

FBI agent Sarah Ashburn has been an exemplary investigator her entire career, but she's made a ton of enemies in her own department along the way. Fearing that she doesn't play well with others, her superiors send her to Boston to help break up a violent and brutal drug ring and discover the face of its mysterious leader. Once there, she finds herself working with Detective Shannon Mullins, a cop who regularly skirts the boundaries of legality in the pursuit of cleaning up her neighborhood. It soon becomes obvious that they cannot solve the case without the other. But can they survive one another long enough to collar the bad guys?

The Heat is directed by Paul Feig and stars Sandra Bullock, Melissa McCarthy, Demian Bichir, Michael Rapaport, Marlon Wayans, Kaitlin Olson, Jane Curtin and Spoken Reasons.

Click here for the full review at Open Letters Monthly.