SANDRA & MELISSA IN THE HEAT

year: 2013 cast: Sandra Bullock, Melissa McCarthy, Jane Curtin, Thomas F. Wilson rating: **1/2

Sandra Bullock plays a character so uptight, she’s just begging for someone to spice up her life. As FBI agent Ashburn she has little to call her own –  even her cat belongs to the next-door neighbor. Meanwhile, her professional life isn’t even worthwhile. The Bureau, replete with macho guys, see her as a know-it-all. But what we learn from the first five minutes, as she figures out where drugs are located in a busted house... even out-sniffing the German Shepard... she possibly does know it all.

So it takes a tough and callused Melissa McCarthy, as a hardnosed cop named Mullins, to become the kind of partner Ashburn needs more than wants. Much of the film, as the reluctant duo seek a mysterious drug lord busting the smaller fish using any method possible, has Mullins giving Ashburn a personality transplant to make her more obnoxious, foul-mouthed, and even sexy.

Both actresses are comfortable in their roles despite the cliché buddy-cop formula, spiced up with a funky STARSKY & HUTCH era soundtrack that doesn't fit the modern setting, even in an intentionally nostalgic sense. Although Bullock seems to be going through the motions since THE HEAT is really, for better or worse, McCarthy’s territory: She belts out insults like bullets from a machine gun, but what's most surprising is no one really tries insulting her back. Perhaps with more worthy competition she might be a whole lot funnier and far less one-dimensional. The same can be said of the movie.