Hot Pursuit

There was no reason that Hot Pursuit needed to be made, just like there is no reason to watch it.  It doesn't have a single original thought, there are no laughs, and it contains nothing that we haven't seen dozens of times before.  It exists solely to rob the time and money of the audience, and to waste the talents of Reese Witherspoon.

Now, Witherspoon is a talented actress, and whenever she's in a drama, she not only delivers a fine performance, but usually picks a worthy project to go with it.  But, whenever she decides to do a comedy, it seems that something happens to her better judgement.  Let's take a look at some of her recent efforts.  She capped off last year with the excellent film adaptation of Gone Girl (which she served as a lead producer), as well as her Oscar-nominated turn in Wild.  And now...this.  I have no problem with her wanting to cut loose and be silly with a fun project.  I'm sure it was a nice change of pace after some of the films she's been doing lately.  But, wouldn't it be better and better for your career if you picked a comedy that was smart or funny, instead of a film like this that seems to think the audience has the brains of a cantaloupe?

Here, she plays a straight laced and by-the-book Texas police officer named Rose Cooper.  Her one goal in life is to be as good of a cop as her father was, who died in the line of duty.  That goal hit a roadblock a few years ago when she wound up accidentally tasering the Mayor's son and setting him on fire over a misunderstanding. (He called out "shotgun", saying he wanted the front seat of the car, and she thought he had a shotgun on his person.) She's been demoted to working behind the desk in the evidence room as the film opens, but the Police Captain (John Carroll Lynch) is willing to give her another chance, and assigns her to help escort and protect a drug boss (Vincent Laresca) and his wife Daniella (Sofia Vergara), who are planning to testify against a ruthless drug kingpin.  When Cooper and her partner, Detective Jackson (Richard T. Jones) go to pick up the couple and transport them, two sets of thugs break into the mansion and gun down Daniella's husband, as well as Detective Jackson.  Now Rose and Daniella must go on the run together, as they face down the usual thugs, dirty cops, and random weirdos one has come to expect from the cop-buddy action comedy formula.

I stared with glazed eyes at Hot Pursuit.  Here is a movie so bound to the cliches of the genre, it literally does not have a single moment or line of dialogue that we haven't seen or heard before in some other movie just like it.  But that's not even what truly sinks the movie.  Where the movie really goes wrong is with the character of Daniella, and the performance of Sofia Vergara.  This is hands down the most unlikable performance I have seen in quite a while.  Vergara seems to find it necessary to be as shrill as possible, and shriek most of her lines at the highest decibel.  She is shrill, unfunny, and completely unlikable, since she is constantly stabbing Witherspoon's character in the back, or trying to leave her behind, or sometimes even trying to kill her.  She is supposed to be the comedic live wire of the film, but her character and Vergara's performance had the effect of nails on a chalkboard to me. 

What's worse, I think we're supposed to like her as the movie goes on, just like Cooper is supposed to eventually bond with her.  But, I did not sense any chemistry between the two lead actresses.  This is bizarre, as apparently Witherspoon and Vergara became very good friends during the shooting of the film.  And yet, up on the screen, they don't even seem to enjoy sharing the screen.  There are some outtakes during the end credits where they seem to be having fun, but in the movie there is a constant distance between them, even when the movie is trying to tell us the characters are becoming friends.  If Vergara comes across as obnoxious, then Witherspoon at least seems to be making an effort, even if the material is far below her abilities.  She's not phoning it in, though you have to wonder what better role she could have done instead of this one. 

Maybe these two women could act well together, but that would require them to be in a movie that gave them character development.  This is a movie that likes to make jokes about how short Witherspoon is, and is under the mistaken impression that non-stop car chases and shootouts are funny.  We also get a scene where a man accidentally shoots the tip of his finger off, and everyone thinks it's been swallowed by his dog.  Again, why is this funny?  Could the movie have been saved by some clever dialogue?  Perhaps, but nobody in this movie is allowed to talk about anything that doesn't advance the plot.  The filmmakers seem to have stripped Hot Pursuit to the most basic essentials, but in the process stripped away the characters and laughs.

I have to wonder why the studio thought this was worthy of a prime summer release date.  This seems more like something that would be quietly shuffled into theaters over Labor Day Weekend, or perhaps during the early winter months.  Whatever the reason, it won't take long for this movie to leave theaters and hit DVD, where it will go unnoticed on the shelf.

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