Movie Review - Hot Pursuit

Hot Pursuit (2015)

Starring Reese Witherspoon and Sofia Vergara

Directed by Anne Fletcher

Reaching levels very close to the abysmal bar set by last year's wreck The Other Woman, Hot Pursuit is another heinously unfunny comedy featuring two actresses who are forced to try and act their way through one of the most poorly-written scripts I've seen in a long time.  The horridness should've been evident from the get-go when Reese Witherspoon and Sofia Vergara signed on to this one, but for some reason, the two ladies decided to tack on producer credits for themselves which makes them equally responsible for the end result.

Witherspoon is Officer Rose Cooper, a hickish Texas cop who despite having had a well-respected cop father who died in the line of duty finds herself relegated to manning the evidence lockers in the police station.  One afternoon she's called to her superior's office where she is told that she is going to be the police escort to drug cartel informant Felipe Riva and his wife Daniella (Sofia Vergara) who is testifying against his recently arrested boss.  Upon arrival at the Riva residence, Felipe and Daniella are attacked with Felipe being killed and Daniella managing to escape with Cooper.  The remainder of the film follows the two ladies as they move from place to place meeting a variety of men who come into the picture for a five minute dalliance only to have them be dismissed without doing a thing to advance the plot.  Bland, unfunny vignette followed by bland, unfunny vignette leads to very little actual plot development and makes the 87-minute runtime feel exorbitantly long.

Unlike The Other Woman which featured some disappointing performances, the ONLY compelling thing about Hot Pursuit is that I felt a genuine chemistry between Witherspoon and Vergara.  That isn't to say that their roles were well-conceived or even that their acting wasn't anything better than a stereotypical caricature, but the two actresses admittedly played well off one another.  And that's the single thing Hot Pursuit has going for it.  Beyond that, the script is filled with way too many ludicrous plot holes, the humor is nonexistent, and the direction ill-conceived at best.  It's a bit shocking how truly awful this is.

The RyMickey Rating:  D-