Hot Pursuit
Warner Bros. | Release Date: May 8, 2015 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
31
METASCORE
Generally unfavorable reviews based on 36 Critic Reviews
Positive:
3
Mixed:
10
Negative:
23
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
80
Village VoiceStephanie ZacharekMay 6, 2015
Hot Pursuit is a quiet triumph of tone and timing. Nearly every scene is cut at just the right point, often topped off with a fantastic kicker of dialogue. Read full review
67
Charlotte ObserverLawrence ToppmanMay 28, 2015
Much of the movie’s charm comes from seeing middle-aged women in roles that usually go to middle-aged men. (Vergara is 42; Witherspoon will be 40 next March.) Hot Pursuit isn’t funnier than most male outings in the cop-witness genre – the 1988 “Midnight Run” remains the best of those – but its casting makes it fresher than many. Read full review
67
The PlaylistKimber MyersMay 7, 2015
Despite all its flaws, it achieves its goal of making the audience laugh, even against their better judgment. Read full review
60
EmpireAngie ErrigoJul 28, 2015
It’s genial, with appealing stars and fair giggles. Read full review
60
The GuardianJordan HoffmanMay 6, 2015
I can’t believe just how dumb Hot Pursuit is. Moreover I can’t believe just how much I laughed. Read full review
58
The A.V. ClubKatie RifeMay 6, 2015
Witherspoon and Vergara are both experienced comedic actors with charisma to spare, and watching them pal around is a perfectly pleasant way to pass some time. But with material this uninspired, 87 minutes of riding shotgun is long enough. Read full review
50
New York Magazine (Vulture)Bilge EbiriMay 8, 2015
A mixture of mild pleasures and deep disappointments. Read full review
50
New York PostSara StewartMay 7, 2015
Witherspoon’s charge, Sofía Vergara as a recalcitrant witness in need of police protection, is an adept slapstick comic likewise hamstrung by director Anne Fletcher’s sluggish pacing, which reliably stays with a scene for three beats beyond the punch line. Read full review
50
Wall Street JournalJohn AndersonMay 7, 2015
Hot Pursuit is about two women finding sisterly common ground despite ethnic, religious, philosophical, temperamental and/or phonetic differences. It also seems an inevitable stop on Hollywood’s perpetual recycling drive, which caters to an audience perfectly content with the creaky and familiar. Read full review
50
Entertainment WeeklyLeah GreenblattMay 7, 2015
What’s spanglish for déjà vu? There’s hardly a single moment in Hot Pursuit that won’t remind you of scenes you’ve seen at the multiplex a thousand times before. (The movie’s original title was Don’t Mess With Texas, probably because Thelma & Louise Ride the Pineapple Express All the Way to Jump Street — and They’ve Got Lethal Weapons, Y’all! was just too long.) Read full review
50
RogerEbert.comGlenn KennyMay 7, 2015
As a delivery system for a newly minted and reasonably engaging if not always laugh-out-loud comedy team — Reese Witherspoon and Sophie Vergara — Hot Pursuit works. Read full review
40
The DissolveKeith PhippsMay 6, 2015
One’s uptight. The other’s flamboyant. Put them together and… Well, not much happens, except the desperation Hot Pursuit brings to its attempts to wring laughs out of the contrast. Read full review
40
Time OutDavid EhrlichMay 6, 2015
This trite road-trip comedy can be so lazy that it squanders the goodwill of a premise that ought to be self-evident. Read full review
38
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Brad WheelerMay 7, 2015
It’s a chase film, it’s a buddy film, it’s a ridiculous, loud and often offensive romp. Witherspoon’s character is cornball and annoyingly adrenalized – what was she thinking? Read full review
38
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperMay 7, 2015
Here’s proof two females can make a bickering-opposites-action-comedy that’s just as lousy and sour as any clunker starring two guys. Read full review
38
St. Louis Post-DispatchKevin C. JohnsonMay 7, 2015
The trailers for the Reese Witherspoon-Sofia Vergara comedy Hot Pursuit hint at a movie that’s unfunny, insufferable and obvious. You can’t say you weren’t warned. Read full review
38
Movie NationRoger MooreMay 6, 2015
Cheap, short and slow, Hot Pursuit is a comedy that never lets your forget that pairing up Sofia Vergara with Reese Witherspoon should have worked better than this. Read full review
30
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzMay 7, 2015
A relentlessly unfunny comedy, it wastes the talents of Reese Witherspoon and Sofia Vergara as egregiously as one could possibly imagine, resorting to lame jokes, cliches and incompetent storytelling to pass the time. Read full review
30
The New York TimesA.O. ScottMay 7, 2015
While a movie that fails to catch fire is disappointing, there is something even more dispiriting about a movie that doesn’t even bother to try, that tosses its stars a soggy book of matches and expects them to generate a spark. Read full review
30
Screen DailyTim GriersonMay 5, 2015
Although Reese Witherspoon and Sofía Vergara do have their fleetingly amusing moments, this road-trip buddy comedy feels like it rolled off the cliché assembly line, offering wan laughs and familiar setups. Read full review
30
The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthyMay 5, 2015
The film is essentially nothing but little and ineffectual bits of recycled shtick with no sense of freshness of invention. And the women never bond in even the most rote or superficial way that's expected in this sort of claptrap. Read full review
30
VarietyAndrew BarkerMay 5, 2015
A few mildly tone-deaf jokes are hardly enough to sink Hot Pursuit. What does, however, is its tendency to belabor the laziest, most obvious gags beyond the point of reason. Read full review
25
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleMay 7, 2015
So there’s nothing here to see, except maybe the white dress that Vergara wears in her first scene. Read full review
25
Portland OregonianJeff BakerMay 7, 2015
It's the kind of movie where the bloopers that run with the end credits are much funnier than anything that came before. That's a good rule for a comedy: if the blooper reel is funnier than the movie, you're in trouble. Read full review
25
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliMay 7, 2015
There's hardly an area in which Hot Pursuit is not found lacking. The comedy is unfunny with joke after joke falling painfully flat. Read full review
25
USA TodayClaudia PuigMay 7, 2015
Hot Pursuit is this week's "Paul Blart." Which is to say, it's ill-conceived, not funny, overbearing and not in any way worth watching. Read full review
25
Rolling StonePeter TraversMay 7, 2015
It's all stupefyingly unfunny. Hot Pursuit is one hot mess. Read full review
25
Slant MagazineEric HendersonMay 7, 2015
The only thing that could've made Sofia Vergara's misguided contribution grislier would have been to fellate a Chiquita banana. Read full review
25
Tampa Bay TimesSteve PersallMay 7, 2015
What really offends about Hot Pursuit is its lazy approach to comedy, and so many short cuts making bad jokes possible. Read full review
25
ObserverRex ReedMay 6, 2015
The direction is credited to somebody named Anne Fletcher, but no evidence of it survives. Read full review
25
HitfixDrew McWeenyMay 5, 2015
It would be a lot easier to give the film a soft pass if it wasn't so aggressively lazy. Read full review
20
Austin ChronicleSteve DavisMay 13, 2015
Nothing in the film remotely resembles any location between San Antonio and Dallas, the beginning and end points of its labored trajectory. For someone in Fresno or Akron, this may not be a big deal, but for those of us in these here parts, it’s a damned distraction. Read full review
20
TheWrapInkoo KangMay 6, 2015
The joyless and perfunctory Hot Pursuit would be a black mark on anyone’s résumé, but it’s an especially disheartening one for Witherspoon at this point in her career. Read full review
12
Washington PostAnn HornadayMay 7, 2015
There isn’t one joke, sight gag or piece of slapstick tomfoolery that lands with any success or originality in Hot Pursuit. Read full review
10
Los Angeles TimesBetsy SharkeyMay 7, 2015
This is an equal-opportunity fiasco. Read full review
0
New York Daily NewsJoe NeumaierMay 6, 2015
Hot Pursuit gets cold quickly. That’s certainly not the fault of stars Reese Witherspoon and Sofia Vergara, who work to keep this blessedly brief action-comedy shaking and cruising to an unthrilling end. The blame lies with a dopey script, director Anne Fletcher and a lazy Hollywood assumption that female buddy flicks should be as half-assed as their male counterparts. Read full review
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