Movie Review: Hot Pursuit (2015)

The movie stars Reese Witherspoon, Sofia Vergara, Matthew Del Negro, John Carroll Lynch and Michael Mosley.

My wife saw a preview for this movie a couple weeks ago and, thinking it looked funny, asked me to add it to the top of our Netflix list. I did just that and we finally had an opportunity to watch it last night. And, while I did initially have some doubts about it (as I usually do with comedy movies), this did prove to be much more entertaining than I was expecting.

Witherspoon and Vergara make an excellent team and do a great job playing off of each other. Witherspoon's Cooper was pleasantly entertaining and a bit different than some of the more glamorous comedy characters I'm used to seeing her play while Vergara's Daniella played her opposite perfectly.

I especially liked how the writers made sure to hold back on some details about Daniella's personality and intentions, something that gave her character much more depth than I originally was expecting. There were a few little surprises that came up as a result of that.

As is usually the case with comedies like this, there were some things about the movie that were a little predictable. This included the revelations about who the bad guys were (including the one secret bad guy that really wasn't as secret as I think the writers hoped). However, the jokes did seem to be somewhat fresh and the budding friendship/ongoing rivalry between Cooper and Daniella managed to keep things entertaining. Even when a scene was predictable, some of the things they did together kept it watchable.

My only real complaint about this movie is I wish we would have gotten to know the FBI agent (Richard T. Jones) a little better. He just seemed like such an interesting character and it would have been nice to see him have a much larger role, even if it was just having him give chase once Cooper flees with Daniella. 

As I said, I had some doubts. But, this was a cute, funny film that I did enjoy watching. If you haven't seen it yet, it's worth taking the time to see it.

My Grade: A