Hot Pursuit

Movie Information

The Story: A stick-in-the-mud cop must go on the run with the loud-mouthed wife of a drug boss after their lives are threatened by a cartel leader. The Lowdown: An annoyingly screechy odd-couple road comedy that’s exhausting in its mediocrity.
Score:

Genre: Odd Couple Buddy Comedy
Director: Anne Fletcher (The Guilt Trip)
Starring: Reese Witherspoon, Sofía Vergara, John Carroll Lynch, Matthew Del Negro, Robert Kazinsky
Rated: PG-13

AR-150509714

 

After years of bad choices, Reese Witherspoon did much to pull her career back into some semblance of respectability last year with her turn in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Inherent Vice and her Oscar-nominated performance in Jean-Marc Vallee’s Wild. And just like that, she’s torpedoed it all with Anne Fletcher’s Hot Pursuit — a boneheaded, obnoxious comedy that suffers from a terminal case of mediocrity. Hot Pursuit’s one of those films where the biggest issue is its propensity towards wallowing in the most rote, jokey and predictable comedy. That director Fletcher — with a filmography that includes The Guilt Trip (2012) and The Proposal (2009) — and a couple of writers (David Feeney and John Quaintance) who’ve specialized in sitcoms are behind such tepid nonsense should be a shock to no one.

 

HotPursuit

 

The whole thing feels like the pilot for some midseason replacement on ABC (Witherspoon’s co-star Sofía Vergara doesn’t help things) — one sorely in need of a laugh track to spice things up. The idea is that Witherspoon (with a garishly overdone Southern accent) is a humorless, by-the-book cop named Cooper who’s been relegated to the evidence room after tasing an unarmed man and setting him on fire (nothing like a tone deaf police brutality gag to lay the foundation of your movie). Then she’s given the chance to finally get back out into the field when she’s asked to help transport a snitch (Vincent Laresca, Devil) and his wife Daniella (Vergara) to Dallas to testify against a Mexican cartel boss (Joaquin Cosio, The Lone Ranger). But Cooper’s ambushed, and her partner (Richard T. Jones, Godzilla) is killed, while she and Daniella barely escape and head out on the lam.

 

UTC_5-22-14_02148.CR2

 

Here, Hot Pursuit becomes just another buddy cop movie. Cooper, the anal-retentive bore and Daniella, the brash sexpot, are total opposites who, slowly but surely, learn to become friends. I nodded off just typing that. As with all films that fit within a specific genre (or sub-genre), this movie’s been done before. But the trick is to somehow make this tried-and-true (or, perhaps, hackneyed would be better) plot feel fresh and inventive. Fletcher and company do not. All of its twists and turns are predictable, its jokes flat. All that’s left is a screwball comedy that just flops around waving its arms like some attention-starved child. Add to this the gratingly shrill nature of the film’s leads (Vergara’s screechiness is the stuff of Lovecraft) and what you’re left with is a movie that’s not tried-and-true, but tired and tiresome. Rated PG-13 for sexual content, violence, language and some drug material.

 

SHARE

Before you comment

The comments section is here to provide a platform for civil dialogue on the issues we face together as a local community. Xpress is committed to offering this platform for all voices, but when the tone of the discussion gets nasty or strays off topic, we believe many people choose not to participate. Xpress editors are determined to moderate comments to ensure a constructive interchange is maintained. All comments judged not to be in keeping with the spirit of civil discourse will be removed and repeat violators will be banned. See here for our terms of service. Thank you for being part of this effort to promote respectful discussion.

11 thoughts on “Hot Pursuit

  1. Lisa Watters

    I thought she was great in Walk the Line — though I’ll definitely be giving this a miss.

    • Edwin Arnaudin

      It’s not as bad as it sounds. If you like Legally Blonde, you’ll like this, too.

      • Ken Hanke

        Well, I pretty much hated Legally Blonde, but not nearly as much as its sequel.

        And here we go, getting people to read about this donkey crap rather than something worthwhile because we’re talking about it.

    • T.rex

      I was so mad she got an Academy Award for nothing more than “talkin with a ‘twang”. Felicity Huffman should have got it that year for Transamerica.

      • Ken Hanke

        I wouldn’t argue that, but…it’s the freaking Oscars and therefore amusing, but meaningless.

Leave a Reply

To leave a reply you may Login with your Mountain Xpress account, connect socially or enter your name and e-mail. Your e-mail address will not be published. All fields are required.