Watch The Heat (2013) Full Movie

An uptight FBI Special Agent is paired with a foul-mouthed Boston cop to take down a ruthless drug lord.

 

Director: Paul Feig

 

Writer: Katie Dippold

 

Stars: Sandra Bullock, Melissa McCarthy, Demián Bichir

 

 There's a scene in "The Heat" in which two people, FBI agent Sarah Ashburn (Sandra Bullock) and Boston police detective Shannon Mullins (Melissa McCarthy), struggle with one another to be the first to open a door. It has already been established that Mullins resents the snooty interference of an FBI outsider into her case. We also know that Ashburn has problems getting along with, well, anyone. Ashburn and Mullins are forced to work together to bring down a Boston drug kingpin, or something like that — it doesn't matter — and for the majority of the film they bicker over whose case it is, whose interrogation style to follow, who knows more about the background intel.

All of that comes to comedic fruition in a lingering slapstick scene of the two women in a death-grip with the door, unable to move forward, unable to retreat, both willing to look completely foolish in order to be the first one through that door. Director Paul Feig (who helmed "Bridesmaids") knows his way around slapstick moments such as this one. He is confident that the event being filmed is funny and worth watching, so he stands back, points the camera, and lets the actresses go to it. It's a very funny bit of physical comedy, deeply logical (neither character can bear to be "second" in anything) and yet deeply illogical (who cares who goes through the door first?).