Tuesday, November 26, 2019

Today's Movie: Hot Pursuit


2015's Hot Pursuit is a cop and crook on-the-run comedy starring Reese Witherspoon and Sofia Vergara. In the film Witherspoon plays the part of Rose Cooper, a by-the-book, yet bumbling police officer assigned to transport the wife of a drug dealer to Dallas so she and her husband can testify against the leader of a cartel. After the husband is ambushed and murdered, Cooper and the wife Daniella Riva (played by Sofia Vergara) flee. With them on the run, and two dirty police officers on their tail, Cooper and Riva must get to Dallas in time for the trial and to clear Copper's name.

Now, I like Reese Witherspoon and I like odd-couple comedies, but I found this movie to be surprisingly unfunny. I'd say a good 95% of the comedy relates to one of following gags: 1) Reese Witherspoon is short. 2) The character of Cooper is uptight. 3) Mrs. Riva is a shrill, overdramatic, caricature of a Latina woman. There is no subtlety to either lead performance, and pretty much none of it landed for me. The basic police officer and criminal having to work together premise has been done a million times but, I think with these two actresses there was the potential here to make a fun comedy. Unfortunately, whether it was Director Anne Fletcher (who is known for making lackluster-at-best films), or a bad screenplay, or likely both, Hot Pursuit just isn't a good movie. As for a few positives; I think the total runtime is less than 90 minutes, and there is a cameo by Mike Birbiglia.

Overall, I'm going to give this one a 1 out of 5.

No comments:

Post a Comment