The Heat

Bridesmaids definitively proved for the umpteenth time to a sexist Hollywood that, yes, women can be funny, and yes, they can be funny without the film descending into a Bechdel test-failing slushfest. Director Paul Feig returns along similar lines here, but without the benefit of a razor-sharp Kristen Wiig script, it’s not quite the surprise triumph that earlier film turned out to be.

Painted with broad, crowd-pleasing (and studio-pleasing) strokes, the laughs come a little clumsier and more cartoonish than you might hope, but at least they come. Sandra Bullock – alumni of many of those aforementioned slushfests – plays a tough and unlikeable career-driven FBI agent, who finds herself unwittingly thrust into buddy-cop territory with brusque Boston beat detective Melissa McCarthy. McCarthy, a comedy juggernaut, comfortably steals most of her scenes, and while the script rarely surprises, it is often funny. And on that point, happily, gender is irrelevant. [John Nugent]