3) Melissa McCarthy
Possibly the funniest comedic movie star at the moment, Melissa McCarthy has demonstrated that she’s at her best when she is completely unrestrained, whether it’s by the generic codes of TV sitcom styles, censorship for the sake of a PG-13 rating, or narrative tightness. That is to say, watching her riff for minutes on end in the comedy equivalent of a show-stopping number is pure bliss, and the crasser she is, the better.
Her improvisational work in movies like The Heat is so rapid and relentless that her use of crass language isn’t always so much the crux of the conversation as much as it is a placeholder, a way of continuing her speech with fluidity as she waits for the next absurd thing to say. It makes for a sort of punk attitude that McCarthy exudes, and explains why she seems at her best when playing characters who are rough, or at least rough around the edges, like in Bridesmaids or This is 40. And it’s in the latter where she’s at her best; although she barely appears in the movie, she was so unbelievably funny that they had to stick her long parents’ meeting rant in during the credits because it was too good to go unseen.
