Review: Hot Pursuit (2015)

Directed by Anne Fletcher, Hot Pursuit follows the story of Cooper (Reese Witherspoon), an uptight and by-the-book cop who is given an important assignment to escort Daniella (Sofía Vergara), the wife of a drug boss, from San Antonio to Dallas so both she and her husband can testify against a cartel leader. However things go awry when crooked cops and murderous gunmen intervene and it’s up to Cooper to make sure she and her witness don’t get killed.

On paper Hot Pursuit sounds like an enjoyable buddy-comedy and both Reese Witherspoon and Sofia Vergara are two very talented actresses who certainly have the potential to carry a movie such as this one. Sadly however Hot Pursuit is a terrible and extremely unfunny movie that did not make me laugh even once. The film tries to go with an odd-couple-esque vibe that is used in nearly every buddy-cop movie to hit the screens but it’s so poorly executed that it just doesn’t work. The script from John Quaintance and David Feeney is truly a travesty. The story is ridden with cliches and you can see where the movie is going 15 minutes in. The jokes are forced, contrived and cringeworthy. The writing is lazy – this applies not only to the comedic aspects but to the narrative as a whole. Even the villains are more irritating than they are threatening.

The only thing about this movie that deserves even slightest bit of praise is Sofia Vergara’s performance which makes the movie slightly bearable but again that’s not saying much. Even though Vergara turns up a commendable performance she has little or no chemistry with her co-star Reese Witherspoon and that’s because both Vergara and Witherspoon play such one-dimensional, stereotypical characters that it’s hard to see them playing off each other.

Even though Hot Pursuit clocks at a mere 87 minutes it’s a challenge to stop watching it and do anything else instead. The movie is painfully unfunny and almost nothing about it works. Not even Sofia Vergara’s cleavage can save this film and the end result is one of the worst movies of 2015.

1.5/10

-Khalid