Hot Pursuit

Directed by Anne Fletcher, Hot Pursuit follows by-the-book cop Rose Cooper (Reese Witherspoon) as she attempts to protect the wife (Sofía Vergara’s Daniella) of a recently-murdered drug kingpin from crooked cops and tenacious gunmen. It’s a well-worn (yet reliable) premise that is, for the most part, employed to shockingly underwhelming and tedious effect by Anne Fletcher, as the filmmaker, working from David Feeney and John Quaintance’s screenplay, delivers a sluggish, momentum-free comedy that never even comes close to achieving liftoff – with the progressively lackluster atmosphere perpetuated (and exacerbated) by both Witherspoon and Vergara’s unpleasant, nails-on-a-chalkboard work as the movie’s one-dimensional protagonists. (The almost total lack of chemistry between their respective characters does little to alleviate the pervasively lousy vibe, to be sure.) Fletcher’s reliance on eye-rollingly labored and stale set-pieces within the episodic midsection only compounds Hot Pursuit‘s less-than-stellar feel (eg Rose and Daniella pretend to be lesbian lovers to get out of a sticky situation), while the frenetic, action-heavy third act is hardly able to pack the exciting punch that Fletcher has undoubtedly intended – which ultimately does cement the picture’s place as a misfire of rather extensive and palpable proportions.

*1/2 out of ****