HOT PURSUIT-ROAD TRIPPIN’ BUDDY COMEDY – At The Movies With Kasey
When I think of comedy duos, the names Vergara and Witherspoon never would have come to mind. I, however, really like Reese Witherspoon and I kind of like Sofia Vergara, so I figured that I had nothing to lose seeing Hot Pursuit, a buddy cop movie that features them together. What I lost was an hour and a half of my life that I wish I could have back.
In Hot Pursuit, Witherspoon plays Rose Cooper, a Type-A cop who landed herself behind a desk in evidence after accidentally tasing a teenage boy. For her first day back in the field, she’s tasked with joining a federal agent to escort Felipe Riva (Vincent Laresca) and his wife, Daniella (Vergara), from San Antonio, Texas to Dallas where they are set to testify against Vincente Cortez (Joaquin Cosio), a powerful and dangerous cartel boss. As Cooper tries to herd Mrs. Riva and her many suitcases out the door, not one, but two pairs of gunmen burst into the mansion, killing the federal agent and Mr. Riva. Cooper and Mrs. Riva escape and are on the run from both sets of gunmen and, through a predictable twist, end up on the lamb from the police too. Along the way they meet hillbillies, handsome convicts, and a tour bus full of adventurous senior citizens. They find out things about themselves and each other, and you know the drill.
I want to preface all of my problems with this film by saying that I think that Sofia Vergara and Reese Witherspoon actually had a lot of comedic chemistry. They both have such high energy and intense physicality as comedians that it disrupted the typical balance between the eccentric and the straight man. At times, one or the other of them would play things straight, but often they each went a little bonkers in their own direction. That could have been fun if the rest of the movie weren’t so bad.
The first problem is the movie is its reliance on stereotypes in its character development. Officer Cooper feels a lot like an adult version of Witherspoon’s famous character Tracy Flick from Election but without the edginess or satire of that film. She’s overly attuned to detail and the rules and has a gratingly manic energy. Other characters point out several times that she seems to want to be a man—a behavior attributed to hero worship of her father. Oh, and, obviously she is too intense to be dateable. Meanwhile, Mrs. Riva is the typical bombshell who uses her looks to get what she wants and is regularly underestimated by every other character. Although the script occasionally has self-referential fun with these stereotypes, the overall effect is bland, static characters giving the actresses little range with which to work.
Then there’s the plot, which aims to combine a buddy comedy with a road trip comedy. In this adventure, our two poorly developed central characters are surrounded by a cast of stock secondary characters, from misogynistic dirty cops to backward Texas ranchers. Each of the women’s misadventures follows a predictable pattern and squanders the potential of the comedic pairing on physical comedy bits that don’t aim high enough to earn any real laughs. Too many of the jokes relied on premises that were not believable to begin with. For example, we are supposed to think that Reese Witherspoon in any way looks like a little boy. Or that no one would suspect that a cop from San Antonio would understand any Spanish. I can’t decide if Hot Pursuit’s bigger crime is misusing the actors’ talents or assuming that its audience is stupid.
For its lack of creativity, reliance on cheap stereotypes, and for the fact that I checked my watch three times in ninety minutes, I rate Hot Pursuit 1/5 stars.
Hot Pursuit was written by David Feeney and John Quaintance and directed by Anne Fletcher. It runs 87 minutes long and is rated PG-13 for sexual content, violence, language and some drug material.
> Read Full Biography
> More Articles Written By This Writer