Cinemazlowski 'Hot Pursuit' isn't high art, but fine for a summer weekend

May 8, 2015

It’s rare to find a mainstream Hollywood movie where the heroine is a Christian who’s open and proud about her faith, and is never shown to be a hypocrite. Unfortunately, that’s one of the few  pleasant surprises of the new comedy “Hot Pursuit,” in which Oscar-winning actress Reese Witherspoon and Sofia Vergara of TV’s “Modern Family” improbably team up in the kind of storyline that makes you cringe even as you’re realizing you’ve seen something like it a thousand times before.

It’s a broad comedy about two women – a policeman and a drug lord’s wife – who have to go on the run from killers who are determined to stop the wife from testifying against the drug cartel in court. The female cop is Cooper (Reese Witherspoon), whose father was the best cop in her city, even though she’s turned out to be a bumbling klutz relegated to the evidence room.

Cooper finally gets a chance at a big case when her chief assigns her to be the protector of Daniella Riva (Sofia Vergara), the wife of a drug kingpin who is headed with her husband to testify against the head of their cartel. But when Cooper goes to pick up Daniella, two teams of men enter the Rivas’ house and kill her husband and the US Marshal assigned to oversee Cooper.

Thus, Cooper and Daniella go on the run in a desperate attempt to stay alive and make it to the testimony. Along the way, numerous car chases, foot chases and other comic mayhem abound, with the two women bonding along the way. Yes, this is the kind of plot you’ve seen a thousand times before in buddy-cop movies, but the twist that the filmmakers are hoping will make it seem fresh is that this time the buddies are women.

It’s far from enough, despite the fact that Witherspoon and Vergara put a lot of manic energy into their parts under the frantic direction of Anne Fletcher (“The Proposition”). They’re trying too hard the whole time, and often the humor arises from such gross discussion topics as menstruation, or a cheap and easy reliance on lesbian humor, from when Daniela starts to grab and kiss Cooper to make a dumb redneck lust after them as a lesbian couple.

It’s a shame that such prime talent is put to waste in the service of such a  formula movie, because there are other moments that are a great deal of fun, including a big chase scene in which two different cars filled with bad guys are shooting at a bus filled with vacationing seniors in the seats and Witherspoon and Vergara fighting for control of the wheel.

Audiences will likely find it enjoyable enough, even though several scenes cross into stupidity and this is hardly the material that earned Witherspoon her Oscar.  But even the most serious of actors need to have fun once in a while, and she likely saw this as giddy fun. The strongest surprise from a Christian perspective is that Cooper and Daniella are both shown as believers and speak of prayer, God, and the angels in matter of fact and positive ways.

Altogether, "Hot Pursuit" isn’t high art, but it’s enough basic fun for most adults and older teens to enjoy on a summer weekend.