Line #104 Film/TheHeat


1	%% Administrivia/ZeroContextExample entries are not allowed on wiki pages. All such entries have been commented out. Add context to the entries before uncommenting them.
2	%%
3	%%
4	[[quoteright:270:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/b4fb845d_ef7c_43a9_bcb7_5bc11dd8e94d.png]]
5	[[caption-width-right:270:If you can't stand the Heat, stay out of the Kitchen (because that's where Mullins keeps her weapons)]]
6
7	''The Heat'' is a 2013 action-comedy starring Creator/SandraBullock and Creator/MelissaMcCarthy. It is directed by Creator/PaulFeig.
8
9	Sarah Ashburn (Bullock), is an uptight, by-the-books FBI special agent. She is forced to team up with Shannon Mullins, a foul-mouthed and abrasive detective ([=McCarthy=]) in order to take down a drug lord.
10
11	Not to be confused with ''Film/{{Heat}}''.
12	----
13	!! This film contains examples of:
14	%%* ActionGirl: Both main characters, but Mullins takes it further, given that her apartment is, essentially, a stockpile of weapons.
15	%%* AlbinosAreFreaks: ''Film/TheHeat'' has an albino DEA agent who is generally antagonistic towards the protagonists and is even noted as looking "evil as fuck" by the CowboyCop. [[spoiler:As it turns out, he's not TheMole, but he is a misogynistic asshole according to his partner (who turns out to be the villain of the film).]] (reposted verbatim from trope page because I have no idea what this guy's name is, please fix
16	%%* AntiHero: Mullins, with her caustic personality and generally antagonistic way/views.
17	* ActorAllusion: This isn't the first time Sandra Bullock played an unorthodox [[Film/MissCongeniality FBI agent]] or [[Film/DemolitionMan someone not good at using cuss words]].
18	* AssholeVictim: [[spoiler:Craig was a misogynistic asshole, which is the reason Larkin kills him.]]
19	%%* BenevolentBoss: Ashburn's. Mullins' is more of a jaded and incompetent PointyHairedBoss.
20	* BigBad: Larkin, the drug lord. The plot is centered around the investigation into his activities and his retaliations against them.
21	* BigBeautifulWoman: Mullins definitely has her admirers. There's even a scene where she has to let a guy down gently, and implies this happens to her quite often.
22	%%* BigDamnHeroes: Ashburn and Mullins to each other, at several points.
23	%%* BigDamnKiss: Mullins gives one to a random guy at a bar, and he is played by none other than Melissa [=McCarthy=]'s real life husband Ben Falcone.
24	* BingeMontage: The bar scene, in which the uptight Ashburn lets her hair down and the OddCouple finally forge a connection.
25	%%* BlackComedy
26	* BloodyHilarious:
27	** The incident with the choking man at Denny's.
28	** Also when [[spoiler:Mullins and Ashburn get taken hostage. Mullins pulls a knife out of Ashburn's leg, only to have to put it back in before the captor comes back.]]
29	* BrickJoke:
30	** Ashburn taking her neighbor's cat, to the point where she fools Mullins into thinking that is really her cat. [[spoiler:During TheStinger, Mullins kidnaps the cat for Ashburn, only to realize that Ashburn was lying.]]
31	** Ashburn mistaking a large, bearded, long-haired man for Mullins when she first goes to the bar for her keys. Later, after the BingeMontage, she wakes up next to him on the table, thinking he's Mullins.
32	** At the beginning of the movie Ashburn is channel surfing and watches a few seconds of a program demonstrating how a tracheotomy is performed before walking away from the television. [[spoiler:Later on, Ashburn sees a man choking in a diner and takes control of the situation by calmly performing the procedure ... unsuccessfully. She panics when she puts a straw in the man's neck and blood comes out, admitting to Mullins that she doesn't really know what she's doing. At this point Mullins pounds on the man's chest, causing the obstruction to come flying out. An emergency tracheotomy is a dangerous procedure that should only be attempted after all other steps have been taken to determine if it really is necessary. Ashburn took none of these steps, as one of the paramedics implies a few minutes later while criticizing her for being so reckless.]]
33	%%* BrokenAce: Ashburn, who's such an arrogant overachiever and InsufferableGenius that no one can stand to work with her.
34	* ButtMonkey: Rojas the drug dealer. He gets chased, knocked down, terrified, dangled off a building and (accidentally) dropped onto ''his'' car while being questioned.
35	%%* ByTheBookCop: Ashburn.
36	* CarCushion: Rojas lands on the front hood of his car after Ashburn and Mullins accidentally drop him from the fire escape. Rojas survives, the car doesn't.
37	* ChekhovsGun:
38	** The grenade that Mullins keeps in her fridge is later used during the climax against [=LeSoire=].
39	** Subverted with the RPG, which gets a whole conversation about where it came from and how ridiculous a thing it is to keep in a fridge, and makes it onto the film's poster, but never gets used once. Doubles as CoversAlwaysLie.
40	%%* ChekhovsGunman: [[spoiler:Think it's weird how few lines the albino cop's partner gets? He's Larkin.]]
41	* ChekhovsSkill:
42	** Mullins' [[spoiler:groin Russian Roulette]] on a perp ends up being a subversion: [[spoiler:she never had bullets in the gun...which Ashburn only learns after actually shooting Larkin in the crotch.]]
43	** Subverted also by the emergency tracheotomy given by Ashburn, which ends up [[WorstAid doing more harm than good]].
44	* ClusterFBomb:
45	** Courtesy of Mullins whenever she’s angrily ranting.
46	** Ashburn lets one rip when she finally gets a hang on cursing. Though like most of what she does, it's very awkward.
47	%%* ComicallyIneptHealing: The tracheotomy scene.
48	%%* CrazyCatLady: Ashburn; given an especially pathetic twist by it not even being her cat, but her neighbour's.
49	* CreatorCameo: Director Paul Feig appears as a doctor, and writer Katie Dippold is a nurse in the ER.
50	* DeadpanSnarker:
51	** Mullins and Ashburn but Mullins is this especially, as most of what she says is a jab towards someone or something.
52	** Also Tatiana and most of the drug traffickers.
53	** And the albino guy, but with more snark and less deadpan.
54	* {{Determinator}}: Both Ashburn and Mullins go far, even past physical pain, to catch their perps.
55	* DirtyHarriet: A version. Mullins rips up Ashburn's suit into a more revealing outfit in a club to get her close to a dealer.
56	%%* {{Dissimile}}: "Like little, tiny, little-girl balls, if little girls had balls."
57	* EvenEvilHasStandards: [[spoiler:Larkin]] didn't like his partner because he was a "misogynistic asshole."
58	* EveryoneHasStandards:
59	** Mullins is not afraid to use brute force to interrogate anyone, and threatens to shoot a perp in his dick to get a confession out of them. [[spoiler: However, she has never actually gone through with it even once, and she's horrified when Ashburn is forced to shoot Larkin twice in the dick to save Mullins and her brother's lives.]]
60	** Both Ashburn and Mullins can't stand the albino FBI and his derogatory comments towards them due to being women, but they are also saddened when [[spoiler:he is coldly murdered by Larkin when they arrive to rescue them, and is also revealed to be innocent when suspected to be the mole]].
61	%%* ExactWords:
62	%%-->'''Julian:''' Relax. I totally get it.
63	%%-->'''Goon:''' Thank you then.
64	%%-->'''Julian:''' I'm not gonna shoot you.
65	%%-->'''Goon:''' Okay, that's cool, man. Thanks.
66	%%-->'''Julian:''' [looks to an armed goon standing next to him] [[LoopholeAbuse He is.]]
67	%%-->'''Goon:''' [[OhCrap Wait, wait, hold on-]] '''[BANG]'''
68	* FailedAttemptAtDrama: One of the things that annoys Ashburn's coworkers is her "showboating". The first sign that she's a FishOutOfWater in Boston is when she tries to drive off while talking to another agent, and nearly collides with a traffic jam.
69	-->'''Levy:''' ''[to himself]'' That was so close to being cool. ''So'' close.
70	%%* FalseRoulette: Mullins, right there in the interrogation room at the police station. She's crazy enough to make the threat believable.
71	* FamilyPortraitOfCharacterization: Mullins' family has {{unperson}}ed her, and accordingly, the family portrait is folded down to obscure her face.
72	%%* FatBastard: Mullins, although she clearly leans on JerkWithAHeartOfGold.
73	* FreudianExcuse: When we meet Mullins' family, we see, to a degree, why she is what she is, as her family (other than her dad and [[spoiler:Jason]]), besides being a bunch of assholes, have made her the {{unperson}} because she [[spoiler:arrested her brother]]. From what can be guessed they might be the reason as to why [[spoiler: Jason's a criminal in the first place]].
74	* FriendlessBackground: Ashburn, ever since growing up in foster homes.
75	* GoshDangItToHeck: How Ashburn swears until her ClusterFBomb.
76	%%** In the [[{{Bowdlerise}} edited for airlines]] version, Ashburn and Mullins both talk like this throughout the movie. This erases a lot of Ashburn's character arc.
77	* GroinAttack:
78	** Mullins threatens Julian with shooting his groin via Russian Roulette until he talks.
79	** Later, [[spoiler:Ashburn shoots Larkin twice in the dick. Mullins is horrified -- she'd never done it with an actually loaded gun.]]
80	* HahvahdYahdInMyCah: The extremely thick Boston accents possessed by Mullins' family results in a humorous scene where one of her brothers asks Ashburn if she's a Narc[[note]]narcotics cop[[/note]] -- pronounced more-or-less like "knock" -- and she has no idea what he's saying. It's enforced with subtitles, where it says they are saying "knock."
81	* HeroicComedicSociopath: Mullins and that goes without saying, given that, to any perp, she's TheDreaded, has stockpile of weapons in her apartment, and is pretty nasty..
82	* HighAltitudeInterrogation: Mullins and Ashburn pull this on Rojas by dangling by his legs over a balcony... only to drop him onto his car accidentally.
83	* IHaveBoobsYouMustObey: Invoked when Mullins tells Ashburn to "use your boobs!" when trying to seduce a mobster. Ashburn [[LiteralMinded shoves the man's face into her cleavage.]] It works!
84	* IKnowMortalKombat: Subverted. Ashburn watches a video early in the movie describing how to perform an emergency tracheotomy. When a guy at a local Denny's starts choking, she tries to apply what she's learned and nearly kills the guy. Turns out all he needed was a good hard whack to get the piece of pancake out. The EMT that takes the guy to the hospital chews her out for this.
85	* ILied: After Ashburn takes one out of Mullins' book and [[spoiler:shoots a drug lord in the crotch]], Mullins reveals that [[spoiler:she never had any bullets in the gun during her groin Russian Roulette on a perp earlier. (The J-frame S&W .38 is a five-shot revolver. If you count the trigger pulls during the earlier "shoot him in the dick" interrogation scene, there are five. The last one Julian didn't notice because he was hysterical with fear, but it proves that there were actally no live rounds in the weapon.) ]]
86	* InstantDramaJustAddTracheotomy: "[[WorstAid Idiots trying this when they don't know what they're doing]]" is used for a fantastic subversion of ChekhovsSkill. Just as Ashburn is getting chewed out by her partner for always thinking she knows better than everyone else, a guy next to them in the diner starts choking. Ashburn, who had half-watched a medical programme about tracheotomies earlier in the film, springs into action... succeeding only in nicking an artery and spraying the diner with blood by the time the ambulance arrives.
87	* InsufferableGenius: Ashburn acts like this and tends to showboat.
88	* ImprovisedWeapon:
89	** Mullins makes good on her plan to throw a phone book in Julian's face during interrogation.
90	** Mullins using a watermelon to subdue Rojas. He considers this a hate crime.
91	--> '''Rojas:''' Oh, hell naw! I told you were a racist!
92	--> '''Mullins:''' I tried to hit you with my car. What does that make me?
93	* {{Irony}}: Mullins' family ostracizes her because she [[spoiler:arrested her brother Jason]]. The only one not upset with her is [[spoiler:Jason himself]], who, if anything, seems grateful.
94	%%* IvyLeagueForEveryone: Ashburn did her undergrad at Yale.
95	* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Mullins is, for lack of a better term, a psychotic bitch, but she genuinely cares about the people in her city, her family, and Ashburn.
96	* JugglingLoadedGuns: Mullins is fond of waving her revolver in people's faces for the slightest annoyance, like telling her not to use her phone in a hospital.
97	%%* JurisdictionFriction: Mullins and Asburn at first. Also, the DEA.
98	* KavorkaMan: Gender-flipped. Mullins may not be conventionally attractive, but she certainly has her fair share of unshakeable admirers.
99	* TheLadette: Shannon Mullins, a tough-as-nails female cop who's far more intimidating than her male coworkers and about as un-feminine as you can get, yet she has a very active sex life.
100	* LamePunReaction: Ashburn's "tongue in cheek" quip when talking about a corpse who had his tongue cut out and [[AssShove shoved in his ass.]] Mullins and the coroner react with an ''incredibly'' awkward silence.
101	* MadeOfIron: Rojas somehow survives a three story drop [[CarCushion onto the hood of his car]] with no injuries whatsoever. The car was less lucky.
102	* {{Malaproper}}: Ashburn during her ClusterFBomb, Sandra's clearly channeling her past character of [[Film/DemolitionMan Lenina Huxley]], except up to eleven.
103	* MarriedToTheJob: Ashburn. She confides that it cost her her actual marriage prior to the film's events.
104	* MirrorCharacter: Mullins and Ashburn are both law enforcement officers that are extremely good at their jobs, but are despised by their peers due to their grating personalities. They also both have family issues.
105	* TheMole: [[spoiler:Adam, the DEA agent, was Larkin all along.]]
106	* NoSocialSkills: Ashburn, however, this in part due to being raised in foster homes and not having any friends as a kid.
107	* NotSoStoic: Julian faces Ashburn in the interrogation room without breaking a sweat. Then Mullins plays RussianRoulette with his balls, and he cracks by the second blank shot.
108	%%* OddCouple: Much of the humor of the film comes from Mullins and Ashburn being this, given that the latter is the more docile of the two.
109	* PreMortemOneLiner: This exchange:
110	-->'''Mullins:''' Guess you and her are engaged now, huh?\
111	'''[=LeSoire=]:''' What?\
112	'''Ashburn:''' Well, cause...(shows a grenade pin on her finger) You just gave me a ring, mother'''''FUCKER!'''''\
113	'''[=LeSoire=]:''' [[ThisIsGonnaSuck (realizing the active grenade is about to kill him)]] [[ProfaneLastWords Aw, shit.]] [[StuffBlowingUp BOOM!]]
114	* PrettyLittleHeadshots: One is seen on a corpse and later [[spoiler:the albino guy]] is killed with one.
115	* RabidCop: Mullins, to comical degrees. She threatens deadly force with abandon, breaks a suspect's hand, and threatens to shoot a prisoner's dick off, to name a few.
116	* RevolversAreJustBetter: Despite her [[MoreDakka extensive arsenal]], Mullins seems awfully fond of her Smith & Wesson .38 Special.
117	%%* RipTailoring: Mullins to a suit of Ashburn's at a club, giving her booty shorts and a more attractive looking top.
118	* RunningGag: Several.
119	** The Jesus-themed Boston sports teams paintings that Mullins' family has.
120	** The leftover cheese sandwich Mullins has in her fridge she keeps offering Ashburn.
121	* ShoutOut:
122	** "What is this, ''Film/TrainingDay''?"
123	** Also to ''Franchise/ScoobyDoo.''
124	--> Oh no, Scoob, Velma and Daphne got captured!
125	* SirSwearsALot: Mullins curses in almost every sentence she speaks.
126	* {{Southies}}: Mullins' family.
127	* StandardCopBackstory: Mullins is looking out for her criminal brother, Ashburn is a foster child.
128	* ThrowTheBookAtThem: Mullins hauls a telephone book at Julian in the interrogation room.
129	* TitleDrop: Mullins says she and Ashburn are "the heat". [[spoiler:It's a sign of Ashburn's development when she later echoes it.]]
130	* TookALevelInBadass: Ashburn, though she was pretty damn good already in regards to finding drugs, etc., so it's a case of her stepping up her game.
131	* UltimateJobSecurity: No one, including the captain, particularly cares for Mullins, but they're all so afraid of her that they just let her demean and talk to everyone however she pleases without any repercussions. As noted by Ashburn later, she's probably one of the most dedicated cops in existence.
132	* {{Unperson}}: Mullins' family pretends she doesn't exist after she [[spoiler:arrested her brother Jason]], to the point that the family photo in their house is folded down to obscure her face. The only ones who don't seem to feel like this is her dad and [[spoiler:said brother, though she and the rest of the family reconcile at the end of the movie]].
133	* VehicularSabotage: Ashburn's car explodes when the old man from the bar tries to get into it.
134	%%* VitriolicBestBuds: Ashburn and Mullins, by the end.
135	%%* WallOfWeapons: Mullins keeps one in her apartment, complete with ''grenades'' and a ''rocket launcher''. Although, they are in her fridge not a wall.
136	%%* WatchThePaintJob: Rojas gets [[HighAltitudeInterrogation dropped]] [[CarCushion onto the hood of a car.]]
137	%%-->'''Rojas:''' Please don't be my car, please don't be my car... ''[looks]'' Awww, my 2003!
138	* WorstAid: Used for comedy when Ashburn, who was just getting chewed out by her partner for always thinking she knows better than everyone else, sees a guy next to them in the diner start choking. Ashburn, who had [[ChekhovsGun half-watched a medical programmer about tracheotomies earlier in the film]], springs into action and nearly kills the guy. The EMT who takes the guy to the hospital [[WhatTheHellHero minces no words explaining how dumb a move this was]].
139	%%* WouldHitAGirl: Julian.

Context Film / TheHeat