Review: Hot Pursuit

Hot Pursuit is not entirely unfunny, though it often seems that way for most of its 88-minute running time. Few of its gags are fresh, and the fact that these tired jokes manage to elicit any laughs is due to the comic talents of the film's leading ladies, Reese Witherspoon and Sofia Vergara.

Witherspoon's Cooper was destined to be a cop, given that she practically grew up in the back seat of her father's squad car. Cooper is a tad too intense - the opening sequence includes her chasing down a man who turns out to have bailed on a date set up via a Christian mingle dating service. Her professional career isn't doing too well either. Cooper is a glorified secretary, mocked by her male colleagues for being overly by-the-book and for accidentally tasering an unarmed teenager and setting his clothes on fire. Her captain (John Carroll Lynch) decides to give her a second chance by assigning her to help escort a witness and his wife Daniella (Sofia Vergara) from San Antonio to Dallas to testify against a drug kingpin.

What should have been a relatively simple task goes spectacularly awry when both the DEA agent and the witness are shot in the crossfire of two separate groups of shooters, forcing Cooper and the newly widowed Daniella to go on the lam. As the women avoid being pursued by dirty cops and even dirtier crooks, they land themselves in a series of situational antics. These include convincing a skeptical farmer (Jim Gaffigan) that they are lesbians by pretzeling themselves into a deeply unsexy clinch, and taking a tour bus of senior citizens on an unexpected highway chase.

Witherspoon and Vergara certainly make for a mismatched pair. The mere sight of the diminutive blond next to the towering brunette is a built-in source of amusement. "You're teeny tiny, you're like a little dog I can put in my purse," Daniella notes upon meeting Cooper, and the screenwriters make a running theme out of Cooper's stature, which decreases with each passing mention, along with Daniella's age, which one news bulletin describes as 45 whilst another television report puts her at 50. Considering Vergara is encased in a variety of outfits that miraculously contain her impressive curves, these cracks make no sense at all. Neither do the glamorous Daniella's constant insults of Cooper's not-so-feminine appearance since Witherspoon always manages to look cute-as-a-button.

Hot Pursuit is not always worthy of Witherspoon and Vergara's abilities. It's sloppy, cartoonish, and serviceable at best. Still, the screenwriters and director Anne Fletcher should be grateful for the actresses' involvement, even if Witherspoon sometimes overdoes her Southern fried take on Tracy Flick and Vergara brays more than is necessary. For a time, watching the film is like seeing two stars battle over who can be more loud, annoying, and unintelligible. Yet one eventually admires the stars' commitment to their roles. It's hard not to laugh at the tone, both matter-of-fact and entitled, in which Vergara delivers the line, "Hi, I want to get on this bus." Or the way Witherspoon amps up her character's already motormouthed ways after Cooper is covered with "baking powder."

Hot Pursuit

Directed by: Anne Fletcher

Written by: David Feeney, John Quaintance

Starring: Reese Witherspoon, Sofia Vergara, Matthew Del Negro, Michael Mosley, Robert Kazinsky, John Carroll Lynch, Jim Gaffigan, Mike Birbiglia, Richard T. Jones