Hollywood is really hot on female comedy duos right now, and we've
all laughed a lot more because of it. Amy Poehler and Tina Fey consistently
steal the show whenever they're together, and last year we saw Melissa McCarthy
and Sandra Bullock reshape the buddy comedy landscape in The Heat. On paper, pairing up
Reese Witherspoon with Modern Family's Sofia Vergara seems like a surefire
winner. Witherspoon's a brilliant Oscar-winning actress, and Vergara...well,
she knows how to do what she's good at. These two will not be added to the list
of great comic duos anytime soon, at least not for a dismal, unfunny film like Hot Pursuit, which proves that
a terrible script will destroy potential every time.
The total gist of Hot Pursuit's humor can be
summed like this: Witherspoon is tiny, Vergara is loud, buxom, and her accent
like something out of a cartoon. That's it. Full stop. There are no other jokes
to be found, or at least none that are worth the time of these two talented
women, but they probably had a lot of fun on set. The film begins promisingly
with a charming montage showing Officer Cooper (Witherspoon) as a child,
practically raised by her San Antonio cop father in the back of his squad car.
He was a police legend, but she doesn't really have his instincts. She's
an uptight, aggressive stick-in-the-mud with an embarrassing taser incident to
her credit ("pulling a Cooper" is a thing) that has left her
relegated to evidence clerk duties. Basically, she's an underachieving Tracy Flick with a badge and uniform. 
A chance to reclaim the family's good name
arrives when she's asked to escort fiery Daniella Riva (Vergara), the shrill
wife of a witness testifying against a drug cartel, into Witness Protection.
When assassins show up and turn the place into a bloody shootout, the mismatched
ladies hightail it out of there in a classic Cadillac. From here it's just one
easy joke after another about Cooper's boyish looks and height ("...like a
dog I put in my PURSE.”) while Daniella is just a stereotypical motor mouthed
angry Latina. There's nothing edgy or remotely creative about any of the humor
here. It's either Witherspoon or Vergara screaming, or....wait, there is nothing
else. Of course all of the guys are corrupt, morons, or both. Well, except for
the one "hot" guy (Pacific Rim's
Robert Kazinsky), who nobly helps them out of a jam even though he's a convict
on parole. There's a romance of some kind that brews between him and the anal
retentive Cooper, who calms herself by reciting police codes. Yeah, she's a
winner. 
There also seems to be some confusion by
the screenwriters whether Cooper is hyper-intelligent and by-the-book, or a
complete idiot. She's dumb enough to not recognize a Texas longhorn even though
she, y'know, has lived in Texas her entire life. At the same time she's a total
stickler for details, which is why Daniella refers to her as "Meeeeeeester
Sherlock Holmes". There's a funny recurring gag about the media's
perception of the two women; there's a not-so-funny joke about Cooper's
underwear, an even less funny drug scene. There's a lot more not-so-funny stuff
than funny for director Anne Fletcher to work with, but as the director of 27 Dresses, The Proposal, and The Guilt Trip she should be
used to that by now. It's also hard to escape the feeling this entire film is
outdated. Not that it needs to be raunchy or anything like that, but the comedy
here is softer than Quilted Northern. Pitch
Perfect 2 will be edgier than
this. 
Vergara has essentially played the same
character since the days of Chasing
Papi, with small tweaks to the formula every now and then. She's been
somewhat reserved in Jon Favreau's Chef and earlier this year in Wild Card, but here she cranks
the volume up to 11. It's a funny shtick and people really like it on Modern Family, but that is a
30-minute show. Driving a fork into your ears will seem like a fantastic idea
after 87 minutes of listening to Vergara screech. She can shimmy around like
Charo all she wants, just do it silence. Maybe after a year that saw
Witherspoon class up a number of dramas she just wanted to have a good time
with a brainless film like this, but it definitely feels like a step backwards
for her. Then again, Hot
Pursuit may very well make a
ton of money. It would be highway robbery if that were to happen. Don't let
yourself be a victim.
Rating: 1 out of 5
