Hot Pursuit is 'a road movie stuck in second gear'

Reese Witherspoon and Sofia Vergara bumble into theatres this weekend in the new buddy comedy Hot Pursuit.

Witherspoon plays Rose Cooper, an uptight cop tasked with protecting Daniella Riva (Vergara), a sexy and outgoing widow of a drug lord, from the gun-wielding mobsters who killed her husband and want her dead.

But the mission to transport Riva across Texas to court, where she's to testify against the cartel, is derailed by the shenanigans of a pair of crooked cops, and the women are forced to forge an unlikely friendship to survive.

Witherspoon's portrayal as an officer of the law is "a little hard to swallow," says CBC's film critic Eli Glasner, "[but] it's nice to see the Oscar winning actor return to her comedic roots."

Hot Pursuit is helmed by Anne Fletcher, the same director behind Seth Rogen and Barbra Streisand's lukewarm comedy The Guilt Trip. 

Like that film, Hot Pursuit is "a road movie stuck in second gear," says Glasner, "gently ambling its way to a comedic conclusion."

Hot Pursuit opens in theatres Friday.

Watch Eli Glasner's review in the video above.