I love the idea of a female buddy cop comedy, but I kept wanting to like this film more than I did. There are some surprising sideways laughs (nearly all of which were probably improved by Melissa McCarthy) but it’s not as funny as you might think, and I forgot most of this movie a few hours after it was over.
What Works: I have no idea what the script for this movie looked like in the beginning, but I’m pretty sure it was vastly different than the finished movie. That’s because McCarthy seems to just show up, create chaos (in a good way), and they keep filming it. Her Boston cop isn’t just the “wild-man rogue” in this buddy cop duo, she looks seriously deranged, like a biker gang’s old lady is undercover as a homeless roadie for The Grateful Dead. Her tone isn’t just aggressive, it’s psychotically hostile to everyone around her, and it keeps poking holes in the cheesy, formulaic “hey, we’re really friends deep down” nature of a buddy comedy. It makes the movie spikier and less predictable than it might have otherwise been.
What Doesn’t Work: Whereas Jason Bateman mostly held his own against McCarthy’s madness and was actually the perfect straight-man foil for her in Identity Thief, Sandra Bullock is largely overpowered. Sure, Bullock is playing a straight-laced FBI agent and her character is supposed to be overwhelmed by the wilder half, but the actress herself seems lost for much of the movie. [Although points must be given for trying, I couldn’t picture Julia Roberts or Reese Witherspoon showing up and playing ball with something this foul.] And the plot of this thing is so by the numbers, you wonder why they even bothered. It’s just a MacGuffin to set the action in motion, but why let it dominate so much of the last half of the film? Nobody really cares and it bogs down the comedy.
What I Would Have Done Differently: Made the central case more interesting or downsized it entirely. Also, it’s a little too obvious who the main villain is. Some of the scenes with McCarthy’s brother could have been trimmed a little too. Just generally tightened up the pacing and made the whole film less indulgent and long.
Loved it. Loved it!