Hot Pursuit (2015), PG-13, ★

Vergara and Witherspoon trying to make us laugh desperately.

I'm going to get this over with because there's only a few chuckles in the movie and not much to talk about in terms of great quality, character development and plot.

Cooper (Reese Witherspoon) is an inexperienced cop who wants to do anything to become more than just an ordinary cop has not had the opportunity to prove herself in the field since the accident involving his father, who was also a police officer. Plus, she always recite the dialogue like a caricature of a cop commandeering the dialogue like it is her own audition of the movie.

Cooper has the opportunity, one day, to accompany Daniella Rivera (Sofia Vergara) and her husband to testify against a drug cartel leader, Vincente Cortez (Joaquin Cosio). However, problems arise as the compound is attacked by assassins as the detective and Daniella's husband are gunned down and both Cooper and Daniella are framed for the murder as they run away. It does not start promisingly as they both clash heads in the beginning due to jokes about Daniella's accent and Cooper's height and it is repetitive and exhausting. However, because it is Hollywood 101, the two seem to have mutual respect for each other as they fight, they make out in a fake lesbian kiss and ride around in a bus full of senior citizens.

Yay! We're in a bad movie. 

This movie felt like a bully slapping and punching me in the gut over and over until the movie is over and it is 87 minutes, so, that feels like an eternity. Also, it has too many subplots and twists and a few backstories and an unnecessary love interest involving Witherspoon's character and Randy (Robert Kaminsky), who is wearing an ankle bracelet because he beat his sister's boyfriend. Ugh. That is just lazy storytelling to increase the running time that is arbitrary.

Reese Witherspoon has been in much better movies than this and this movie scrapes the bottom of the barrel with her films like Legally Blonde 2, Twilight (1998) and This Means War. I think this features one of her worst performances on her career and that is ironic because her previous film, Wild, featured one of her best performances of her career. What could she possibly in this script? (I'll get to that in a moment.) Sofia Vergara, who is a talented actress noticably in TV's Modern Family, just plays a caricature of herself and it is insulting. They had potential chemistry but thanks to lazy storytelling, it never plays off.

No question this is one of the worst movies of the year. And, so far, director Anne Fletcher (The Proposal) made a funny movie with Sandra Bullock and this movie is just trash compared to her previous film. It has not been a great year for female directors with this movie and Fifty Shades of Grey so what does that tell you so far? Witherspoon maybe wanted to work with a female director and see what she could tackle with the "material" on the script. Aside from a few chuckles, this movie  is condescending towards senior citizens, Latin Americans and police officers. This movie is labeled as punishment for a movie fanatic.

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