Hot Pursuit: Film Review

Hot Pursuit: Film Review

Cast: Reese Witherspoon, Sofia Vergara
Director: Anne Fletcher

It's girl power all the way in this formulaic, by the numbers, road comedy that falls on the usual tropes to get it through.

Reese Witherspoon goes back to her broad comedy roots to play an uptight by-the-book cop, Officer Cooper, who finds herself given the task of escorting Modern Family star Sofia Vergara's Danielle Riva to testify in a case against a drug lord and his cartels.

But when the bad guys come shooting and Coop's not sure who she can trust, the pair go on the lam with only each other to rely on.

Hot Pursuit is a very old school film in many ways.

It's slapstick farce which is light on comedy but high on squawking from Sofia Vergara, who essentially plays another version of her Modern Family character.  There are a couple of running gags which mock Witherspoon's character's height and Vergara's character's age but all in all, it's a little patchy at best.

Witherspoon riffs well on the Texan style she's used to playing and does the broad comedy well, but it feels like the writing just isn't strong enough to propel the film through, despite it only being 87 minutes long. As the comic Thelma and Louise rolls on in their bonding, Hot Pursuit rolls out the predictable gags, faux lesbian moments and an increasing silliness to push it over the finish line.

The worst offender on the humour front comes when Coop and Riva fool their captors and escape by explaining that one of them is having their period. It's at this point that you start to wonder how certain parts of the movie made it from the page in the first place.

Ultimately, Hot Pursuit's odd couple chemistry delivers exactly what you'd expect, nothing more, nothing less - it's just a shame that it feels like it's squandered its promise somewhat, and failed to deliver a female led comedy film that Hollywood's been lacking for a while.

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