This is the same Reese Witherspoon that got nominated for an Oscar last year, right?
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“Hot Pursuit” stars Reese Witherspoon and Sofia Vergara as a cop and her convict on the run and trying to figure out who is behind the murder of an important witness while staying out of the line of fire themselves. Not exactly a new premise, but who really cares, right? I mean, the goal here is to get Reese and Sofia together for some comic misunderstandings and mischief as the audience rolls at their hilarity and comedic chemistry. Only one problem, they don’t have any. Actually, sorry, I wish that were the only problem. Truth is this movie is full of them, mostly stemming from the fact that none of this movie feels the slightest bit authentic.
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I take that back. During the credits they show some outtakes from the shooting of the movie. Those actually felt real, and were genuinely funny, so lets call those the best thing. Because they stood in stark contrast to the falseness of the 90 minutes that preceded them. “Oh look, that’s what they look like when they are having fun together, so why wasn’t that kind of fun in the actual movie?”
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I just didn’t buy a single part of this movie. I didn’t buy the script, I didn’t buy the plot, I didn’t buy the situations they were in, and I didn’t buy the characters, which is disappointing considering Reese is usually good at pulling me in to the reality of a moment. But even she seemed strangely off her game. How can she go from such a deep and honest role like last year’s Wild, into something like this where it feels like she’s a total cardboard cutout? Maybe it’s just hard to act against Sofia, who by the way is gerat in Modern Family, but here just feels like she keeps cramming her palm against the “funny” button, and nothing happens, so the desired humor turns to awkward desperation. I mean, there’s only so many accent jokes an actress can do right? The whole thing just feels like some sort of SNL sketch that not only doesn’t work but lasts for the entire 90 minutes. Ah, but at least some of it is funny, right? Not really. I honestly don’t remember a single laugh before the end credits, other than a couple uncomfortable ones, when the movie tried it’s hand at some sort of awkward version of being a PG-13 raunch com. Seriously, if you’re in the mood for this kind of movie save a few bucks and just go rent “The Heat” again. It’s 10 times as good, and you might actually laugh a few times.
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Overall, Hot Pursuit is a misfire on every level. It’s not funny, the leads don’t play well together, and worst of all it all just feels like a badly contrived skit. It’s only because of a few laughs during the outtakes and out of respect for Reese Witherspoon that this manages to escape custody with a generous D.