This is not a particularly original movie. A straight-laced by-the-book good cop is forced to partner with a slovenly rule-breaking bad cop. Hilarity ensues. Also explosions.

However The Heat (IMDB) is very funny and sometimes that’s all I require.

Sarah Ashburn (Sandra Bullock) is a buttoned-down humorless FBI agent with a superb track record. She’s better at her job than any of her male colleagues and she doesn’t hesitate to let them know it. She’s up for a promotion but she probably won’t get it because, unfortunately, everybody hates her.

She’s promised that she still has a chance at it if she can go to Boston and track down a mysterious drug kingpin who seems to be taking over the city’s criminal gangs. As soon as she gets there she has a run-in with Detective Shannon Mullins (Melissa McCarthy) a crude, unscrupulous foul-mouthed local cop. (But of course she has a heart of gold underneath. She only breaks the rules because she’s so passionate about locking up the scumbags who threaten her beloved run-down South Boston neighborhood.)

Naturally Ashburn and Mullins don’t get along at all and naturally they are forced to work together.

McCarthy carries this movie almost single-handed. She is absolutely hilarious. Bullock does a fine job playing straight-man.

Not for children due to violence and vulgarity.