"The Heat": A cop comedy with two mismatched buddies

Sandra Bullock is the brains, Melissa McCarthy the mouth and the muscle in The Heat, a mismatched-cop comedy founded on the proposition that the lower the humor, the louder the laughter.

This profanely hilarious and tonally erratic spoof of buddy movies is funny as it begins in Miss Congeniality 2 territory, funnier still as it zooms into Lethal Weapon climes. But it stops dead, and I mean that literally, when it takes a U-turn into a Pulp Fiction sinkhole of slapstick violence.

Directed by Paul Feig (Bridesmaids) and written by Katie Dippold, The Heat boasts the surprisingly sharp teamwork of Bullock (FBI agent Sarah Ashburn) and McCarthy (Boston cop Shannon Mullins) whose characters are surprised by their surprisingly sharp teamwork.

Outward appearances suggest that Ashburn, immaculate in a gray pantsuit, and Mullins, disheveled in vest and cargo pants, are opposites. Ashburn, a deductive reasoner like Sherlock Holmes, operates strictly by the book; Mullins works intuitively from-the-gut. The joke is that beneath the contrasting sartorial and procedural styles are two misfits, know-it-alls, grown-up versions of the overzealous fifth grader who knows the answer. Difference being, Ashburn waits to be called on and Mullins blurts out the response.

The more pointed joke is that they are misfits because they are women in law enforcement, a profession dominated by men. Ashburn defers to her commanding officer, where Mullins humiliates hers.

As the buddy comedy is a same-sex version of the romantic comedy, the two women meet while competing for a parking space. Hate at first sight. At second sight, it's jockeying for position: Who will lead the investigation to find a druglord smuggling heroin onto the streets of Boston, book-smart Ashburn or street-smart Mullins?

Mullins commands the lead (like Riggs in the Lethal Weapon movies) because she's scarier and crazier than anyone in the room, but also because McCarthy plays her in steamroller fashion, suggesting that the raw chili Mullins munches on is the source of her fire. McCarthy's talent - and it is formidable - is in profane motormouth improvisations that spew from her fireplug frame.

While as Mullins, McCarthy uses her physicality and her verbal skills to intimidate and shock, Bullock's Ashburn reacts with doubletakes and pratfalls. Bullock is funny, but upstaged, outrun, and outtalked at every turn. The result is not as equally matched a buddy comedy as Miss Congeniality 2. (For stretches, I imagined what The Heat would look like with Regina King in the McCarthy role.)

Still, I enjoyed the good Fed/bad cop rapport and the narrative about women without female friends who become friends. What I did not enjoy is the film's final third, which struck me as a version of Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch played for laughs. I like wisecracks, but not when they're accompanied by the sound of bones cracking. Let me put it another way: The Heat had me at hello and lost me at the tracheotomy.

Directed by Paul Feig. With Sandra Bullock, Melissa McCarthy, and Demian Bechir. Distributed by 20th-Century Fox.

Running time: 1 hour, 57 mins.

Parent's guide: R (extreme profanity, violence, sexual candor, surgical humor, drugs)

Playing at: area theatersEndText