Hot Pursuit is directed by Anne Fletcher (The Guilt Trip)
and stars Reese Witherspoon (Walk the Line) and Sophia Vergara (Modern
Family). The premise here is quite
generic and simple. It’s essentially a
road trip movie in which an inexperienced cop named Cooper (Witherspoon) has stumbled
into the dangerous task of having to escort a federal witness (Vergara) across
Texas. Oh, and they are being chased by
several different groups of experienced killers.
Nobody
is going to accuse this film of being brilliantly written. There are a number of problems with David
Feeney’s screenplay. As I’ve already
mentioned, it is completely generic.
There is certainly nothing new here.
However, even if something is generic it can still be well executed. Unfortunately this is not. The film is clumsy with no real flow. It is basically just a series of disjointed,
albeit funny, events happening one right after another. There is plenty of stupidity in the film as
well. Not the good kind of stupidity that
is funny, but the bad, unintended kind.
This screenplay is an epic failure.
Ironically, the movie as a whole is not.
The
story here is Reese Witherspoon. Playing
what amounts to the spoof comedy version of Clarice Starling, she carried this
film from start to finish. I feel like
she went off script quite a bit or maybe it was just that her delivery was so
good. In any event, her jokes are the
only ones that really work, and every one of them works big time. For my money, this is the best comedy
performance of the year. Sofia Vergara
is not bad in the movie. She certainly
has her moments, but Reese stole the show.
Most of
the attempted drama in the film falls pathetically flat. There are some very awkward bonding scenes
between the two main characters. This was
forced and unnecessary. We can clearly
see that they are bonding through these events they are going through. We don’t need to have it forced down our
throats in this way. This is one of
those things that feels like a filmmaker is telling the audience they are
stupid. We can see what is happening
with the characters. Leave the horrible
attempt at emotional dialogue at home.
The
ending of the movie was kind of stupid, but I’ll let it fly. It was okay to me. They changed the movie up a little, which was
a good thing to do. There were still
funny Reese jokes, and this is the one time in the film where the drama kind of
works a little bit. I feel like I should
have hated this ending but I didn’t.
I don’t
want to keep harping on this subject, but I just have to mention it. The trailer pretty much spoiled this entire
film. I had already scene all of the big
jokes. On top of that, there are
multiple scenes in the trailers that are not even in the movie. This is not a new problem in Hollywood, but
it is frustrating nonetheless.
My
general assessment of Hot Pursuit is this; almost everything is bad except
Reese Witherspoon. She is actually so
funny that the movie works. In spite of
all the problems, I actually enjoyed the film.
It’s really funny. I laughed a lot.
Isn’t that really the point of a movie like this? I have seen the other
reviews, I respectfully disagree with most of them. This is not anywhere near a classic, but it
is a very funny and enjoyable movie. The
Movie Man gives it 3 out of 5 stars.
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