Hot Pursuit

There’s a scene in Hot Pursuit where Reese Wetherspoon attempts to drive a tour bus but fails to reach the pedals. It’s an apt metaphor for the film’s attempts at action. With a title like Hot Pursuit, you’d be forgiven for expecting something relatively high octane, a feminine twist on the old action chase suite that feels exhilarating or vital. It’s possible that the working title was Mild Pursuit, or Languid Pursuit, or maybe even So Offensive I’d Rather They Didn’t Pursuit.

Regardless, the premise never really has any bite, and that’s not even the worst of its problems. Reese Witherspoon and Sofia Vergara play an odd couple that find themselves on the run from the law, with Reese playing Officer Cooper, diminutive in both stature and modes of expression. Sofia Vegara is cast as her counterpoint, Daniella Riva, the shrill and braying wife of a loose lipped Puerto Rican criminal.

Cooper is assigned as the state assigned escort for Mrs. Riva when Mr. Riva decides to testify against the murderous cartel boss Cortez. Things go predictably awry when Mr. Riva and Cooper’s CIA counterparts are gunned down by two opposing pairs of gunmen, and the titular pursuit begins in earnest. The action pans out in a fashion best described as rote, but there is at least one twist that feels relatively surprising amidst a litany of horrendously telegraphed and utterly by the book series of character developments: the pretty one isn’t all looks and no brains! The frumpy one looks good in a dress! The pair of them have a hard time communicating because they’re from two different walks of life! It’s a shame, because Vegara and Witherspoon have a decent chemistry, and Vegara has routinely proven herself capable of comic timing and delivery in Modern Family.

Worse than wasting their talent, Hot Pursuit actively debases it, and brings its leads down to the dumbest of depths. There is a forced lesbian encounter, a terrible cat fight, the inevitable hunk who melts the icy heart of the frump, and the reductive observations that each character is required to make of the other before they inevitably prove themselves to each other. Having Vegara howl and contort herself around a tone deaf racial profile makes the whole ordeal utterly execrable, and Witherspoon isn’t given anything remotely interesting to work with. It’s all just unrelentingly painful to watch, and incredibly short on laughs.

The odd couple dynamic isn’t something that’s easy to breathe new life into, but enough films in the past have traded on the concept to show that it doesn’t work when you make both characters offensively reductive. There are hints at something more nuanced and fleetingly intelligent here had the effort been put in, but as it stands it is impossible to salvage any goodwill for Hot Pursuit.