Official Synopsis
In “Hot Pursuit,” an uptight and by-the-book cop (Witherspoon) tries to protect the sexy and outgoing widow (Vergara) of a drug boss as they race through Texas, pursued by crooked cops and murderous gunmen.
There were a lot of things struggling to keep up in Hot Pursuit, though the cast and the funny moments weren’t part of that equation. The movie proves that you have to establish a well-balanced, connected story if the moments are to stand out, otherwise everything falls apart. Sadly, the film is the latter part of that sentence.
Let’s get right into it.
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The first act of Hot Pursuit does what it needs to do to get things going. Through the credit sequence, we’re introduced to, through father/daughter/cop bonding moments of her childhood, Cooper (Reese Witherspoon). Her father takes her everywhere in his cop car, thus she is thrown into the police environment throughout every stage of her life. In the span of 2-3 minutes, we’re led from Cooper’s childhood to her current job as a police clerk. Through a diverse technicality (aka because a female is needed to make sure the police hit their diversity quota), Cooper is put on a special case to escort two key witnesses, who are spilling the beans about an infamous drug lord, into protective custody. Of course, as act one would have it, things go wrong and Cooper, with newly widowed Daniella (Sofía Vergara), is on the run.
The first act is fine. It’s a good setup for this type of comedy and it’s built up, development wise, quite well. We have a well established, though over-acting Reese Witherspoon as Cooper, who is developed into her end result when she is shown as an adult. We get that she has dedicated her life to law enforcement and we get there is nothing else outside of it for her (that is reinforced through an awkward dating scene at the beginning). When she is assigned the escort job, it’s fully understandable how important it is to prove herself. All of it is well done, if not a little overdone, which might have indicated an issue, though not a major one.
As the first act progresses, the story shifts into the main plot point, which is Cooper having to protect Daniella, and again, this ends up transitioned into very well. Cooper is trying to prove herself to her commanding officer and precinct, while Daniella is helping to set up the relationship dichotomy between her and Cooper (Daniella is rich and helpless, while Cooper is on point as the ‘job is my life’ type of personality). Again, it’s smooth, makes sense and gives off that light-hearted comedy vibe to it.
Then act two happens and ever element of construction established in the first act becomes incredibly shallow, disjointed and shaky in structure.
Act two begins as Cooper and Daniella are on the run from a few killers. It is revealed after a series of encounters that the antagonist are coming from within the police department. No biggie, right? Well, after that revelation, the story starts to place Cooper and Daniella in a series of uncalled for locations that bring more comedy relief than relevance to the story. For example, there is a car crash where Cooper is dashed with tons of cocaine. She becomes quick-paced and energetic from the powder encounter, and ends up somehow making her way to a truck stop to get new clothes (they’re on the run from everyone thanks to the traitors in the police department), which spouts comedic moments, but no real substance. The truck stop cocaine romp switches over to a lesbian encounter (with each other) in order to steal a vehicle from a perv-y farmer played by Jim Gaffigan, so they can get to Dallas. Why Dallas when the police department is after them? Good question. No idea. But the make-out scene between the two stars is somewhat awkwardly hilarious. Then from that point, the duo steals a truck from a paroled man, who they unwittingly kidnap, and who can offer them shelter at an Indian casino. A little random, but doable, right? Well, it was okay until the antagonist show up (how did they know they were there? No idea) and disrupt the relaxation.
Act two keeps moving along in a sporadic fashion. The ladies end up on a tour bus for the elderly, only to be tracked down and shot at by the antagonist. A good chase scene? Sure. How does it connect with everything up to this point? It doesn’t, though I will say it does have a small twist at the end of it, which does make sense with something that happens in act one.
Beyond that one little sliver of twist at the end of the chase, the entire second act of the film is a complete mess. It relies on cheap jokes to drive the story and doesn’t properly bridge plot point to plot point as things progress. It seems like maybe director Anne Fletcher and writers David Feeney/John Quaintence just forgot the movie they were trying to make and relied way too much on the comedy to patch up the holes when they appeared. That’s a real shame considering Witherspoon and Vergara could have knocked this out of the ballpark, as they seemed very dedicated to the roles, regardless if the ship was sinking or not.
Anyway, as act three starts up, the twist turns into a dramatic plot point that turns into the climax of the story. I do think that what Daniella was trying to do in act three (not going to reveal it) was proper with this type of story, but the second act messes up the build so much that caring about the resolve and the two characters driving the show has been put firmly in the backseat. It does end well, but it’s hard to appreciate the ending after going through so many disjointed moments.
Overall, Hot Pursuit had a good, solid start, but the story lost sight of where it wanted to go, which is a shame. The ending helps to ease the pain a bit, but the second act is such a confusing mess that the payoff isn’t as powerful as it could be. Like I stated above, the comedy is there, but the story is clearly forgotten. Again, it’s a shame, as this could have been a solid film.
On the Blu-ray side of things, the quality of video is fantastic, as per usual from a Warner Home Video release (they know how to treat their stuff). The colors and the locations all play well with the HD format and this could quite possibly be the best thing about the release. The transfer is quite clear and crisp with little to no imperfections in the transfer process.
On the features side of the tracks, here’s what you can expect:
– The Womance
– Say What?
– Action Like a Lady
– Alternate Ending