Sarah Ashburn, an FBI agent, is extremely ambitious and has her eye on a promotion, but she doesn't get along with her co-workers. She is sent to Boston to uncover the identity of an elusive drug lord, Mr. Larkin, by tracking down his proxy, Rojas, and is told that she'll have a good shot at the promotion if she finds Larkin. When she arrives in Boston, she learns that Larkin has been eliminating his competition and taking over their operations. She learns that Rojas is in Boston PD custody and goes to see him to ask him what he knows about Larkin, but is warned that the cop who arrested Rojas, Shannon Mullins, is very territorial, and she is not exactly sociable. When the two meet they don't get along. When Mullins learns why Ashburn is in Boston, she decides to find Larkin herself. Ashburn is told by her boss to work with Mullins, but it won't be easy because Ashburn does things by the book while Mullins does things her way. Written by

Plot Synopsis:
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FBI Special Agent Sarah Ashburn is a very skilled and effective investigator, but is despised by her fellow agents for her arrogance and condescending attitude. Hale, Ashburn's boss at the New York FBI field office who is being promoted, sends her to Boston to investigate a drug kingpin named Larkin with the promise that she would be considered as his replacement if she can solve the case while showing the ability to work effectively with others. Once in Boston, she is partnered with Shannon Mullins, a skilled but foulmouthed and rebellious police officer with the Boston Police Department. Ashburn's by-the-book philosophy clashes with Mullins' rugged and violent style of police work. Mullins discovers the details of the Larkin case by stealing the case file from Ashburn and insists on helping her. Ashburn reluctantly agrees, realizing that she needs Mullins' knowledge of the local area.

Ashburn and Mullins follow leads to a local night club owner and successfully place a bug on his cell phone. As they leave the club, Ashburn and Mullins are confronted by two DEA agents, Craig and Adam, who have been working the Larkin case for several months and are worried that their case will be compromised. After viewing him on a screen in the DEA agents' surveillance van, Ashburn discovers that Mullins' brother, Jason, was recently released from prison, having been put there by Mullins herself, and may be connected to Larkin's organization. Ashburn convinces Mullins to go to her parents' home to ask Jason for information on Larkin. On their arrival at the home, it becomes apparent that Mullins' parents and two other brothers still harbor deep resentment for Mullins' involvement in Jason's incarceration. Jason, who does not have any ill feelings toward his sister, tips her off about the body of a murdered drug dealer hidden in an abandoned car. Upon examination of the body, chemicals on the victim's shoes lead Ashburn and Mullins to an abandoned paint factory, where they witness a drug dealer being murdered by a member of Larkin's organization named Julian. The two apprehend Julian and interrogate him regarding Larkin, but are unable to extract any substantial information regarding Larkin's whereabouts.

The pair spends the evening in a bar bonding over several rounds of drinks. After a night of raucous drinking and partying, Ashburn wakes up the following morning to discover that, in her drunkenness, she has given her car keys to one of the bar patrons. After unsuccessfully pleading for the keys, Ashburn watches, along with Mullins, as the car explodes upon being started, having been fitted with a bomb. During the investigation of the explosion, the two discover that Julian has escaped from custody and may mean to harm Mullins' family. Mullins moves the family into a motel, but learns that Jason has joined with the Larkin organization in an attempt to aid the case. Jason gives her a tip about a drug shipment coming in to Boston Harbor. The FBI sets up a sting at the harbor to take down the shipment, but discovers that the ship they have been waiting for is actually only a pleasure cruise ship and Jason has been set up by Larkin. Knowing that he informed the FBI about the supposed drug shipment, Larkin attempts to have Jason killed, but only puts him into a coma.

Mullins vows to bring her brother's attacker to justice. Ashburn and Mullins learn of a warehouse where Larkin houses his operations. After equipping themselves with assault equipment from Mullins' extensive personal arsenal, the two infiltrate the warehouse. Despite taking out several of Larkin's men with a hand grenade, the two women are captured and bound by Julian, who threatens to torture them with knives. Julian is called away by Larkin, but before he leaves the room, he stabs Ashburn in the leg with one of the knives. Mullins removes the knife from Ashburn's leg and uses it to cut the rope binding her hands. Before she can finish freeing herself and Ashburn, they are discovered by Craig and Adam. Craig begins to untie the two women, but is shot and killed by Adam. Ashburn and Mullins deduce that Adam is actually Larkin, having been working his own case from inside the DEA for several months. Julian reenters and is instructed by Larkin to kill Ashburn and Mullins while he goes to the hospital to kill Jason. After Larkin leaves, Mullins, whose hands have already been untied, manages to finish freeing herself and Ashburn incapacitates Julian with a head butt. Mullins then frees Ashburn and the two race to the hospital to save Jason.

Upon their arrival, Mullins rushes to find Jason. Ashburn, hindered by the stab wound in her leg, is unable to move quickly. Mullins finds Jason's room, only to discover Larkin standing over his bed with a syringe, intending to kill Jason by injecting air into his vein, causing his death by an air embolism. Mullins drops her weapon in an attempt to save her brother's life. Ashburn, having had to crawl to the room, then enters and subdues Larkin by shooting him in the genitals. With Larkin captured, Ashburn requests to stay in the FBI's Boston field office, having developed a strong friendship with Mullins. Jason is shown having fully recovered from his coma. The film ends with Mullins receiving a commendation from the Boston Police Department, with her family present cheering for her, having reconciled with her.

Afterwards, following a misunderstanding earlier in the film, Mullins brings Ashburn her neighbor's cat, after believing that it was hers from a picture in her house.

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rustybuttocks from Ireland
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Alright, I confess, I simply could not get through this. And I tried, god knows I did, but the amount of deeply unpleasant police brutality played for laughs, and the extremely overt misandric humor, not to mention the good old-fashioned mind-boggling stupidity of it all, in the FIRST TEN MINUTES ALONE was just about as much as I could take. I soldiered on for another half hour or so but couldn't make it to the end. The Melissa McCarthy character is just foul, a female fascist pig (sow? can I say that?) screaming abuse at every man she meets and taking glee in inflicting completely unnecessary physical pain on them just for laughs. Playing Russian Roulette pointing a loaded gun at a man's genitals. Taking a teenage boy to jail just for smoking a joint and going out of her way to destroy the family life of a foolish john caught trying to pick up a streetwalker. We're supposed to find this kind of contempt and hostility funny and... empowering? something like that. But I really didn't. And if the genders were reversed, neither would anyone else. Neither would you.

Anyhow, I don't know which is the more astoundingly implausible: Sandra Bullock effortlessly being the best cop on the force without doing a single scrap of detective work or the morbidly obese McCarthy successfully chasing after and catching a 19 year old black kid in peak physical condition. I guess the latter, just for sheer absurd spectacle, but it's a close call.

There's a few funny moments around the McCarthy character's family dinner table, and you get to see Bill Burr for a little bit, which is always worth a watch. But still: awful, awful film.

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AW Harbell from USA
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Warning - Spoilers ahead: Who is writing all the rave reviews here? This is one of the worst movies ever. Cringe-making scenes of drunken writhing and vomiting. Non-stop F-bombs from an obese slovenly woman police officer. Why does her boss tolerate an interminable scene where she comments on how small smaller and smallest his testicles are? Affirmative action? Several scenes of binge drinking, random shooting between the eyes or between the legs of good guys and/or bad guys. Who cared anymore? Then Sandra Bullock gets stabbed in the leg three times with a 2-inch knife blade and says Ow! Ow! a few times. Har! Har! Funny - huh? We saw this at an early matinée on 7-1-13 with only one other older man in the audience. He left halfway thru - didn't even finish his popcorn. Yet the movie finished #2 at the box-office this week. I guess that's where the rave reviews are coming from. Man - am I out of step.

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Had Enough from Ireland
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I cannot understand all the very negative reviews for this movie. They almost convinced me not to watch it. Fortunately, the decent reviews convinced me to take an chance, and I am glad I did. This movie is as good a comedy as any of the decent comedies to come out in the last two years, of which there were not many. The acting was top class. The script was very funny and the direction was just right. The leads complimented each other perfectly. The pace was very good and kept you interested. Even the slower part which was only a very small portion of the overall movie, but was one of the things which made it more human and easier to relate to. Well worth a look.

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DarkDefender_81 from Germany
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I've never come so close of walking out of a movie theater in my life. The film was really that bad. And the script was even worse. This must have been written by someone with just one brain cell or two, at the most. It wasn't funny or entertaining at any point. So how can a studio spend even one dollar on a crappy script like this, a script that shouldn't have seen the light of day in the first place? It' a complete mystery to me.

The actresses unfortunately aren't much better either I'm afraid. Since they have no chemistry at all, both are doing their own thing. McCarthy is cursing and foul-mouthing 24/7, probably to make her look hip, cool & tough. Well the contrary was the case. She was just annoying from start to finish.

And Sandra Bullock? What the hell is she doing in this picture? How could she have sold herself out to this garbage? I can't remember another film where she was this bad (I haven't seen 'All about Steve'). There are only two films this year so far that were worse. 'Movie 43' and 'Scary Movie 5'. And now there is 'The Heat'... Yes it's really that bad.

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apeman45 from United States
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Maybe this was outside my demographic. There were several women in the theater laughing hysterically the whole movie. I think I chuckled once or twice or maybe I threw up a little in my mouth - I'm not sure. I LOVED Bridesmaids so I was expecting a funny movie. This movie was depressing and I would have walked out but my girlfriend was enjoying herself so we stayed.

Decent cast and some good comedians which had nothing to work with. I was saying the lines before the characters were, they were so obvious. The plot is terrible with no surprises and the script seemed to be an ad lib for Mellissa McCarthy. Don't get me wrong she is funny but it got to the point the movie seemed like a 2 hour Saturday Night Live skit. The executions and deaths were puzzling in a comedy. Our heroines waving guns in the faces of innocent civilians for laughs wasn't funny. The message that Sandra Bullock couldn't get a man because she was threatening to men was ridiculous.

The Heat is more like a summer blizzard. I can't recommend it.

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kingbad from Florida
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I have no problem with remakes. Considering how much it costs to make a movie these days, selling something that people enjoyed the first time makes sense; it's a predictable return on the studio's investment, and it's easy to market a movie that's just like "so-and-so meets such-and- such". So, when a studio wants to remake an 80s buddy-cop comedy, with women in the lead roles, I say why not? There are enough Murphy-Nolte, Gibson-Glover, and Willis-everybody role models out there, how could you go wrong?

Here's how. Instead of ripping off a successful buddy-cop franchise, The Heat has Running Scared meeting The Odd Couple. Instead of a completely unconvincing pairing of a Borscht Belt ham and a tap dancer, they've got Sandra Bullock playing, yet again, a neurotic tight-ass and Melissa McCarty playing, yet again, a foul-mouthed slob. These two completely unlikable, and unbelievable, characters, one an FBI agent who somehow manages to confound detection dogs with her ability to find hidden drugs and weapons despite a complete lack of detection skills, and the other a Boston cop who (somehow) manages to successfully work undercover, in her own neighborhood, despite being morbidly obese, obnoxiously loud, and wearing the same clothes for days at a time. Both are (deservedly) pariahs within their respective departments, who somehow succeed despite their own individual and collective incompetence, and grow to adopt each other's most annoying bad habits. This movie plays to an audience's lowest, dumbest instincts- sadly, it will probably be a hit. Avoid at all costs.

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cellarfame
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Not sure if it counts as a 'spoiler' to emphasise how bad this movie is. Its only redeeming feature was the depressing thought I had when a quarter of the way through that it might have been a blessing to humanity if the whole invention of cinema had never been invented, just so that civilisation could have been spared of such trash. I suppose I might be being a tad harsh, since there was one or two reasonably funny moments from a couple of minor characters - but the overwhelming sense was that the only chance this film had of being watchable was if the two main characters had been wiped out within the first 5 minutes and the end credits started rolling there and then. I would not have minded so much in paying good money and might even have thought this was an art-house short film with a worthwhile message.

However, as it was, please, please spend 100 minutes in your dentist chair instead.

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oldman007 from Australia
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I remember when I saw reviews when "The Heat" first came out, everybody, and I mean everybody was bashing this movie. Saying it was worthless, stupid, vulgar, pointless etc. It even got to the stage where people were getting so offensive and making death threats to the film makers. Seriously, all of you, i'm here to tell you, BACK THE HELL OFF! And, for those people out there, who are really smart, do not believe what you have been told. This movie is truly great in so many different ways.

It is, indeed, the stereotypical buddy-cop type movie. But, if you can exclude that cliché, it is actually, extremely well thought out and well put together.

We start off with a professional, smart agent named Detective Ashburn (Sandra Bullock). She has everything you could have. She's smart, intelligent, polite, so committed to her job that it makes other officers look bad. Yet, somehow, has relationship troubles, does not have any friends, and just works, works, works until she can sleep.

Now, we have Officer Mullins (Melissa McCarthy . She is the complete opposite of Ashburn. Mullins is vulgar, crude, rough, tough, mean and says the f word almost in every sentence, and is not afraid to shoot your dick off or throw watermelons at you! Both of them are fighting over a serious case over a serial killer named Larkin. Larkin means business, this man kills families, and is not afraid to kill anyone who gets in his way of either drugs or murder.

The humor is a combination of everything. There is a lot of witty humor, and at the same time, loads of vulgar humor. I loved the chemistry between Mullins and Ashburn as well. I like how we watch them slowly have a connection with each other and start talking about each others lives and how they start forming a friendship they have never had before.

In my opinion, hilarious, lots of action, lots chemistry and loads of fun. Don't know where everyone else went wrong! 10/10

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alex (doorsscorpywag) from United Kingdom
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Hollywood has a new genre of films comedies that don't have any laughs in them. Actually this genre has been around for a while and this simply the latest in a long line. Sandra Bullock used to be a good actress but nowadays she is just another journeyman/woman making movies for a paycheck.

The Heat was basically just a series of scenes from other (better) movies. We had the at odds with the boss scene,the scene that identified our two heroines as being misunderstood by all their colleagues. The getting drunk together bonding scene, the silly dance scene, the stepping on the toes of another law enforcement agency scene, the turning from a shrew into a mean mother scene,the captured by the bad guy scene, the escape from the bad guy scene, the capturing the bad guy in the nick of time and saving someone scene and finally the former screw up getting a medal scene.

A collection of movie clichés without any empathy at all with the audience. Did we care about any of the heroines? I know I didn't. One a cop who swore all the time and treated her boss like dirt and the other the polar opposite.

Oh how we laughed as these two found common ground and began to work together for the good of the community. No wait a minute. We didn't laugh as there was not one remotely funny scene in the whole movie.

What a rubbish film.

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filgray84 from UK
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What are all you moaners bitching about? Seriously what did you expect? Yes it's foul mouthed! It made that perfectly clear on the trailer! I am not dumb, nor am I a junior high student as stated from another negative review. But I got exactly what I wanted! Rude, crude and hilarious laughs a plenty! Yes it's cheap, yes it's not particularly intelligent but it is very funny! And the screening I went to was sold out and the entire auditorium were laughing their asses off just like me! And that's why it's been a hit at the box office! So all you haters go crawl back under your rocks and get a sense of humour and stop rating this movie a 1 when it does exactly what it set out to do! Make you laugh!

The guy Mullins Melissa McCarthy makes out with in the bar scene is McCarthy's real-life husband Ben Falcone.
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Ashburn's yearbook is Sandra Bullock's actual 1982 yearbook from Washington-Lee High School in Arlington, Virginia. The art department digitally manipulated Bullock's picture to include glasses and braces, neither of which she had in her original high school senior portrait. They also took out all the signatures within the book.
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In the version shown on Lufthansa the classic "Balls" scene is dubbed to "brains". It worked fine until she says: Little girl brains, if little girls had brains.
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Originally set for an April 5th release, but was pushed back two months due to positive reception from the studio, who thought it had better playability as a summer release.
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According to writer in a Huffington Post article, Katie Dippold, Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy were looking to make a movie together before they found the script for The Heat (2013).
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Before The Heat (2013), the last comedy about female law enforcement partners was Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous (2005) also starring Sandra Bullock. This film marks Sandra Bullock's third role as an FBI Agent(the previous ones are Miss Congeniality 1 and 2).
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Originally, Melissa McCarthy was unable to do the film due to overlapping commitments for Identity Thief (2013) and Mike & Molly (2010). But the day after the former wrapped filming, McCarthy commuted to Los Angeles and Massachusetts, enabling her to do both.
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When the script for The Heat (2013) was sent to director Paul Feig, it was still called, 'untitled female buddy-cop comedy'.
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The 15th biggest grossing film of 2013.
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The first 20th Century Fox film since mid-2010 to have its 35mm release prints on Kodak film, following Kodak's June 2013 agreement with Fox to supply film to its motion picture and TV studios. The studio had previously switched to printing on Fuji.
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The picture in Hale's office shows B-52s that are or were located at the 309th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group at Davis Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, AZ. Sometimes referred to as "The Boneyard", it is where many military aircraft are stored until reused or destroyed. There is no obvious reason why the picture is in his office. (The picture is from Wikipedia's entry on the base).
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This movie is the final time the 20th century fox logo uses the "a news corporation company" byline. Beginning from turbo it is byline less for the first time since 1981.
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This is Marlon Wayans' second movie as an FBI agent.
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Paul Feig: The hospital doctor who says to Mullins that her entire family has been removed from the ward due to excessive profanity.
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Craig (Dan Bakkedahl), whom other characters repeatedly assume is a villain because he is an albino, is a parody of the "villainous albino" trope that has become increasingly prevalent in movies since the 1980s. These movies include: Lethal Weapon (1987), Cold Mountain (2003), Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008), The Da Vinci Code (2006), and End of Days (1999). Early in The Heat, there are visible clips from two movies that have albino villains - The Matrix Reloaded (2003) and Foul Play (1978), as a foreshadowing of the Craig character and the criticism he represents of the idea that all movie albinos are evil.
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AKAs Titles:


Certifications:
Argentina:13 / Australia:MA15+ (2013) / Canada:14A / Canada:13+ (Quebec) / Denmark:15 / Finland:K-12 / France:U / Germany:12 / Germany:16 (extended version) / Germany:12 (theatrical version) / Hong Kong:IIB / Hungary:16 / India:A / Ireland:15A / Mexico:B15 / Netherlands:12 / New Zealand:R13 / Peru:14 / Philippines:R-13 / Portugal:M/12 / Singapore:M18 / South Korea:18 (original rating) / South Korea:15 (re-rating) / Spain:16 / Sweden:15 / Switzerland:14 / UK:15 / UK:18 (Uncut edition) / USA:R (certificate #48096)