The Heat: Women Can Be Buddies Too!

The buddy cop movie is a well-known genre. Two men with wildly differing world views are forced to work on a case together. After their initial horror at the assignment and plenty of bickering, they team up as unlikely allies to take down the bad guys who are engaged in some random wrongdoing. The plot isn't the point, the burgeoning friendship between the two cops is all the audience cares about. But why do the two cops have to be men? Because Hollywood says so. Luckily, writer Katie Dippold has decided to claim this genre for the fairer sex, and with Bridesmaids director Paul Feig at the helm, we now have The Heat.

Sandra Bullock plays FBI agent Sarah Ashburn who is sent to Boston on a special assignment to take down a druglord. Ashburn is an uptight, straight-laced cop, who can't even bring herself to swear (quite a rarity in law enforcement). She also has a fiercely competitive streak and likes to show off her intelligence, which obviously does not endear her to her male colleagues. This Boston case is her chance to prove herself and earn a promotion, but that seems like a hopeless prospect when she is forced to team up with Boston Detective Shannon Mullins (Melissa McCarthy). Mullins is foul-mouthed, violent, and terrorizes her colleagues, including her much put-upon Captain. Together, these two women have to track down a network of criminals, but given the trouble they have even getting through a door together, one wonders how they're going to engage in any effective police work.

The Heat is a brilliant take on a familiar genre, and quite frankly, gender has very little to do with the story. You could replace Bullock and McCarthy with two men and very little of the script would have to be altered, apart from the occasional reference to Spanx. And yet it is astonishing how much more hilarious and refreshing this movie is simply because it has two leading ladies. These are two funny women who are at the top of their game and they attack every scene with glee. They go through an arsenal of comedic and literal weapons, deploying physical comedy and grenades, wordplay and pistols, sarcasm and explosions, with equal relish. This isn't some genteel comedy about two lady cops - these women are engaged in some bloody and violent showdowns and carry themselves with aplomb through increasingly hilarious and harrowing escapades. I spent a good portion of this movie just laughing out loud at their bizarre antics and although the plot is nothing new, the chemistry and give-and-take between these two actresses is simply magnificent.

There is no reason why the term "buddy cop movie" should immediately conjure up images of men fighting crime. The Heat proves that Hollywood's antiquated notion that only leading men can make a movie successful is an imaginary construct. Even after the success of female-led movies like Bridesmaids, studios are still asking, "But will audiences want to see a movie that only stars women?" I don't know what it will take to convince them that the answer is a resounding "Yes!" But as a start, we can go out to theaters and watch movies like The Heat. I can only hope that its inevitable success will help bring more funny women on to our movie screens.