Film Year: 2013
Genre: Comedy, Action
Director: Paul Feig
Starring: Sandra Bullock, Melissa McCarthy, Marlon Wayans
Commentators: Joel Hodgson, Trace Beaulieu, J. Elvis Weinstein
The Movie
I want to make something very clear right here and state outright that I have not watched The Heat outside of this commentary. My mother, a Sandra Bullock fan, once tried to get me to watch this movie and wouldn't let me leave her house unless I borrowed it. It sat in my apartment untouched for about six months because I just could not work up the desire to pop it in the blu-ray player (at the time I had no idea there was a Joel, Trace, and J. Elvis commentary on it). Finally after months of harassment from my mother to give it back I admitted defeat and told her that I was unlikely to crack it open any time soon. I don't watch many comedies anymore because unless they hook me with a neat concept (like Horrible Bosses or Game Night) or a performer(s) I enjoy (like Shaun of the Dead or We're the Millers), then I just don't have the patience to sit through it. Granted I might be missing out on some surprises because of this, but considering how much crap I'd have to wade through to get to those surprises I'm going to consider missing out to be well worth it. And even still, it's no guarantee that I'd respond to the films other people respond to as well. The Hangover was considered one of the funniest movies since the turn of the millennium, yet I found it to be aggressively unpleasant. In the case of The Heat, I had seen so many buddy cop comedies in my lifetime that I wasn't really actively looking for another one, and while I like Bullock just fine, Melissa McCarthy has never made me laugh once at anything she's ever done (I'm completely serious, people have bore witness to my befuddled dead silence while watching her). The Heat did nothing to hook me, so I didn't take the bait.
My lack of having watched this movie by itself might make my opinion of the film forfeit, because this riff in general is recorded more in a commentary style, which mutes the movie a bit and makes following it hard to do. If you wish to dismiss my words on this movie I absolutely understand and support that decision. If I wanted to do this more properly I would have watched the movie unriffed beforehand, but honestly life is too short and I really didn't care. From what I made out of the movie through the commentary I'd say I made the right call.
The plot as far as I can tell: Sandra Bullock stars as a straight-laced FBI agent assigned to a drug case in Boston, where she is forced to team-up with a brash and angry detective played by Melissa McCarthy to take down a drug lord. Shenanigans ensue.
Melissa McCarthy feels incredibly miscast in this film. Her attempt at a loose cannon shtick amounts to a lot of swearing and pretending she can kick your ass, but if you look her in the eye you can see this dead look in it that just makes her come off as a comedian stumbling through a role. Her comedic timing, as always for me, becomes an issue as well. She delivers her lines as shrilly as possible and belabors a joke far longer than it needs to go on for. There is an early gag in the film where she "humorously" looks for her superior's "balls," and calls out for everyone to help her look for them...and it goes on forever. I fucking get the joke. Thomas Wilson's line "She's looking for my balls" is all you needed for this to be funny, or at the very least you could have just cut to her waving the Tic Tacs around screaming "I found his balls!" and that might have worked too. Instead what we have here is punctuating it needlessly to give McCarthy the punchline because she's the star. Humor should be efficient, not stretched.
The physical comedy also looks stressed and tired. Bodily movements in these select comedy bits feel unnatural, as if they're struggling to make it look possible (this is far from the only time I've held this opinion of McCarthy's physical comedy, mind you). Physical comedy should look fluid and natural. Look at the greats like Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, who made it look effortless. Look at the Three Stooges, who were living cartoons but adapted themselves and the world around them into that animated style to make it work. Here, it looks staged and forced, which robs the bits of any laughter that they might have.
Sandra Bullock at the very least is a strong straight man for McCarthy's absurdity. If a bit almost works it's because Bullock's reactions are on point and a lot of the moments in the film that did make me laugh were fueled by her. There's a botched attempted tracheotomy job that I thought was pretty well staged and a brief scene where she scolds a tracking dog for not finding drugs that got a legit laugh out of me. If you do find McCarthy funny then I'm sure this pairing offers some incredible chemistry. I wish I were less of a comedy snob so I can at the very least have fun with the interplay between the duo.
Sigh. I tried. The films of Feig and McCarthy have a fanbase, but I am not among it. There's nothing really about the film that I found appealing and it really lost my interest about thirty minutes in. By the time it concluded I was just kind of glazed over and barely felt like I had watched anything at all. Comedy should bring me joy, this movie left me a little dead inside. It's not the worst thing I've ever seen, but it's passionless, overlong, boring, and just not that funny.
The Commentary
I remember many times in my online fanhood of Mystery Science Theater that quite a few of us always said if we were ever lucky enough to make a movie of our own we would have the cast of MST do a commentary on it. A lot of this was just pipe dreams and boasting to ourselves, but director Paul Feig found a way to live the dream. Good for him.
But...there's a problem...
See, Feig directed a comedy. A bad comedy, yes, but still a comedy. Comedy is a riffing 101 no-no, and Feig's desire to see his own comedy riffed shows a bit of a misunderstanding of the format. But Joel, Trace, and J. Elvis are friends of his and I imagine this was just him bringing his buds in, goofing around, and probably having a beer afterward, so the fact that this commentary exists really isn't at the expense of a creative decision.
Considering that there is a lot riding against them, Joel, Trace, and J. Elvis actually do a fairly decent job here. It doesn't feel as if this commentary is scripted, which gives it a fair KTMA flavor, only these comedians are so seasoned at this point that their off-the-cuff improve (with maybe some prepared gags for good measure) has gotten a lot stronger at this point. If nothing else The Heat is an argument for these types of comedic audio commentaries to be common place and for that I'd say it's a worthwhile listen.
The only real issue is that the commentary mutes the film somewhat and talks over the dialogue, making the film difficult to follow overall, as I've stated above (Wikipedia summaries are my friend). There are even times where they seem to note it themselves as they talk over plot points then wonder what they missed. It's clumsy, but at the same time it's slightly charming in that it reinforces that this is a live viewing and not a line recording/edit job.
I think I can safely say I laughed more at the commentary than I did at the actual movie. There's a fairly blah scene where McCarthy and Bullock argue about touching breasts, which just sat there for me as a barely anything bit, but Joel cracked up and said "It's 'tit for tit'" and made me laugh also. J. Elvis at one point mocks the movie's staging with lines like "Okay, there's hooker inconsistency: They don't hang around when they see a badge." Late in the game there's a point where Paul Feig cameos and they roast him relentlessly, and you can tell they're being fueled by the fact that Feig is likely in the other room overseeing this commentary and probably laughing his ass off.
But the slight misconceptions of the riff add up in the end, what with the movie being talked over and the genre of the film not really setting them up for great material. If you've seen the movie and maybe even enjoy it I imagine this commentary might be a lot funnier to you than it was for me. I'm not sorry I've listened to it, in fact I enjoyed it more than I thought I would, but it's not a must listen.
Considering that there is a lot riding against them, Joel, Trace, and J. Elvis actually do a fairly decent job here. It doesn't feel as if this commentary is scripted, which gives it a fair KTMA flavor, only these comedians are so seasoned at this point that their off-the-cuff improve (with maybe some prepared gags for good measure) has gotten a lot stronger at this point. If nothing else The Heat is an argument for these types of comedic audio commentaries to be common place and for that I'd say it's a worthwhile listen.
The only real issue is that the commentary mutes the film somewhat and talks over the dialogue, making the film difficult to follow overall, as I've stated above (Wikipedia summaries are my friend). There are even times where they seem to note it themselves as they talk over plot points then wonder what they missed. It's clumsy, but at the same time it's slightly charming in that it reinforces that this is a live viewing and not a line recording/edit job.
I think I can safely say I laughed more at the commentary than I did at the actual movie. There's a fairly blah scene where McCarthy and Bullock argue about touching breasts, which just sat there for me as a barely anything bit, but Joel cracked up and said "It's 'tit for tit'" and made me laugh also. J. Elvis at one point mocks the movie's staging with lines like "Okay, there's hooker inconsistency: They don't hang around when they see a badge." Late in the game there's a point where Paul Feig cameos and they roast him relentlessly, and you can tell they're being fueled by the fact that Feig is likely in the other room overseeing this commentary and probably laughing his ass off.
But the slight misconceptions of the riff add up in the end, what with the movie being talked over and the genre of the film not really setting them up for great material. If you've seen the movie and maybe even enjoy it I imagine this commentary might be a lot funnier to you than it was for me. I'm not sorry I've listened to it, in fact I enjoyed it more than I thought I would, but it's not a must listen.
Average
The Blu-Ray
This audio commentary is a blu-ray exclusive on 20th Century Fox's release of the film, leaving those who stuck with DVDs in the dust. The video of the film is pretty good, and the audio of the commentary is fair. I imagine the audio track to the film is fine, but I haven't listened to it. The disc is loaded with special features, but I have no interest in watching any of them.
I mean seriously...there are four more audio commentaries on this movie. I'm not watching this fucking thing four more times!
Other special features include an extended version of the film, bloopers, featurettes titled Mullins Family Fun and Acting Master Class, and deleted, alternate, and extended scenes. If you like the movie, go nuts. I'm just going to huddle in a corner and cry because I failed at blogging about this thing.
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