I am a huge fan of Sandra Bullock.
From the moment I saw her in Speed in 1994, I was totally in love (in a sweet non-stalker-ish way that doesn’t bring on Do Not Approach Orders and doesn’t involve hundreds of photos plastered across a blood-splattered wall in a grimy downtown basement; you know the kind) and have pretty stayed that way ever since.
It’s rare for me to be so besotted.
While there are actors in both TV and movies that I respect and admire, I have never really been a celebrity-obsessed kind of guy, caring not whether Matt Damon had omelettes for breakfast, or, and this from a tweet I saw yesterday, whether Kim Kardashian (who is barely a celebrity anyway) is having trouble getting her leather leggings to stay in place.
How is that even news?
But there was something about Sandra Bullock, who was refreshingly and candidly down-to-earth, and apparently every bit as nice in real life as she was in interviews, and moved to Austin, Texas to escape the potential superficiality of life in the Hollywood celebrity fishbowl, that appealed.
As did her acting.
While there were missteps along the way – name an actor who hasn’t produced a cinematic turkey in his or her time – such as Two If By Sea, Speed 2, and All About Steve – by and large she has chosen wisely from Wrestling Ernest Hemingway through to Speed, While You Were Sleeping, and of course her Academy Award-winning role as Leigh Anne Tuohy in The Blind Side, which was thoroughly deserved.
Which brings us to her upcoming April 2013 release The Heat, in which she stars as an FBI agent who doesn’t play well with others and who is assigned to partner with a Boston policewoman played by Melissa McCarthy (Gilmore Girls, Bridesmaids) to bring down, naturally enough, an evil drug lord.
Now much as I love Sandra Bullock, this movie, from the man who brought you Bridesmaids – I know everyone said it was hilarious and I don’t hate gross-out raunch comedies but I really didn’t like this movie – couldn’t go either way.
It has all the ingredients you’d expect of a movie like a mismatched buddy movie.
The efficient by-the-book FBI agent paired with a rough-as-guts policewoman with attitude who, despite clashing repeatedly eventually bond and become the best of friends, learning valuable life lessons along the way (and accidentally dropping a “perp” off a building onto a car).
And yes it made me laugh out loud a few times which makes sense since both actors have a real gift for physical comedy (witness the beer incident near the end of the trailer and you will see what I mean).
But I can’t help wondering if it is too cliched for its own good.
Misgivings aside though, it is a Sandra Bullock film first and foremost – sorry Melissa I may be a little one-eyed – and so naturally I will be in cinemas whenever it reaches Australia ready to cheer her on.
And who knows? Maybe laugh a hell of a lot, and wonder why I ever doubted her (and yes Melissa) in the first place.
* What do you think? Turkey or eagle?