Hot Pursuit review: Reese Witherspoon and Sofia Vergara go on the lam for a limp comedy

Director: Anne Fletcher; Screenwriter: David Feeney, John Quaintance; Starring: Reese Witherspoon, Sofía Vergara, Matthew Del Negro, Michael Mosley, Robert Kazinsky; Running time: 87 mins; Certificate: 12A

Reese Witherspoon and Sofia Vergara are on the lam in Hot Pursuit, an oestrogen-fuelled odd couple comedy that runs out of steam very early on. Director Anne Fletcher (27 Dresses, The Guilt Trip) drags it out with one or two jokes that revolve around the height difference and the fact that both women talk kinda funny. That's a shame because the chemistry between the two is fairly good, and perhaps could have caught fire with better material.

Witherspoon gamely offers herself as the unsexy one, a neurotic by-the-book cop in sensible shoes who is tasked with hauling state's witness, Daniella Riva (played in typical hypersexual style by Vergara) across Texas - along with her trunkful of designer heels. Riva is set to testify against a Colombian drug lord (Joaquin Cosio) but after a shootout at her home, Cooper also finds herself wanted for killing one of her own. It's an unlikely mix-up that sees the ladies roar off in a swanky Cadillac convertible and proceed to bicker in quirky accents.

Unfortunately, the highly distinctive pronunciation of words doesn't hide the banality of the dialogue. The bitchiest it gets is when Daniella comments on Cooper's "teeny tiny" stature, which she does with annoying frequency, while Cooper is just too gosh-darned nice-as-pie in that down-home Southern way to really put Daniella in her place. The brash Latina shtick that has made Vergara's name in TV's Modern Family wears very thin here, but because both characters are so one-note, the inevitable scenes of female bonding also fall flat.

It's easy to imagine the pitch that would have greenlit this project - something along the lines of The Heat meets Midnight Run - except the plot keeps taking left-turns into Nowheresville and someone forgot to put in the jokes. Moments of peril are fleeting, too, with our heroines easily outfoxing the gangsters and dirty cops who are hot on their tails, mostly prat-falling or roly-polying their way out of trouble - or pawing each other in echoes of softcore porn.

Overworked yet underdeveloped; watching this movie is like watching a dog chasing its tail and just about as funny.

Witherspoon has a couple of amusing moments (hopped up on cocaine in one scene and mistaken for Justin Bieber later on) otherwise she effaces herself in vain. The slapstick is unimaginative and as fast as the action moves, there's a lack of pace.

Overworked yet underdeveloped; watching this movie is like watching a dog chasing its tail and just about as funny. The leading ladies are done a great disservice, in spite of the fact that they're also credited as producers and it's especially a shame for Witherspoon, who is more versatile than her co-star and fearless in the pursuit of laughs. It's just that for all her exertions, there is nothing to grab a hold of here.