Unlucky in love, career cop Cooper (Reese Witherspoon, Walk the Line) is nonetheless married, albeit only to police protocol. So anal-retentive is she on duty that when Cooper hears a young man excitedly tell his friends that he calls “shotgun,” she takes it as a threat to public safety and tases him. Ha.
A redemptive shot arrives for Coop when she is assigned to help escort a cartel narc and his wife to Dallas to testify against a Colombian drug lord. Upon pickup, however, the narc is murdered — ha? — leaving his rich-bitch insta-widow (Sofia Vergara, Machete Kills) in Cooper’s care, with the bad guys in … wait for it … Hot Pursuit!
Like Midnight Run stripped of testosterone and edge, the chilly Hot Pursuit is a broad comedy in both senses of the phrases. Witless and nutless, the material is far beneath an actress of Witherspoon’s talent. We know she can do comedy (for proof, see Alexander Payne’s Election), but she’s chosen not to be funny here (nor has anyone) and she’s even on board as a producer! Meanwhile, Vergara, the tube’s reigning sex bomb thanks to the ratings juggernaut that is Modern Family, proves as shrill as she is shapely, yelling her sub-sitcom lines with a ferocity that makes Kevin Hart look shy and reserved.
For such a female-powered production, directed by The Proposal’s Anne Fletcher, Hot Pursuit comes packed with gender politics oddly out-of-sync with the times. For example, (attempted) punch lines are built upon such cavemen-era concepts as “Periods are icky!” and “Policewomen look like lesbians!” Ha and ha, respectively.
When your end-credit bloopers can’t even pull a smile out of the viewer, something is horribly, irrevocably wrong. (Just ask Burt Reynolds, Reese.) Let the record show that while I ironed shirts as the Blu-ray spun and purred, I found watching the movie to be the least desirable of the two tasks. Kill me now. —Rod Lott