Name : Betsy Sharkey / Alias : Los Angeles Times
For all the pain, grief, sadness and suicide that layers Cake, it is a serious treat to see the actress stretch herself. Hopefully this film won't turn out to be a single slice.

Name : Wesley Morris / Alias : Grantland
The movie is actually smart about the seriousness of grief without being oppressive itself. And [Aniston's] performance is equally intelligent.

Name : Justin Chang / Alias : Variety
At the last minute, "Cake" becomes a film not about chronic pain, but a different subject entirely, and one about which it doesn't have all that much new to say.

Name : Sheri Linden / Alias : Los Angeles Times
It's a letdown that the film itself, written by Patrick Tobin and directed by Daniel Barnz, doesn't take half the chances its leading lady does and is content to paddle around the shallows rather than plunge into the deep end.

Name : Claudia Puig / Alias : USA Today
Nothing about Cake is remotely tempting or sweet.

Name : Rafer Guzman / Alias : Newsday
A toothless and nearly laughless buddy comedy.

Name : Ben Sachs / Alias : Chicago Reader
Reese Witherspoon delivers a few minutes of superb physical humor in this otherwise worthless action comedy.

Name : Todd McCarthy / Alias : Hollywood Reporter
Isn't this the sort of nitwit comedy Reese Witherspoon wasn't going to have to make anymore after becoming a producer on the likes of Wild and Gone Girl?

Name : Brad Wheeler / Alias : Globe and Mail
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?

Name : Soren Anderson / Alias : Seattle Times
Clearly, the idea here was to follow in the flatfootsteps of "The Heat": Funny ladies do funny cop-movie business. But with all the overacting and downright YELLING, comedy crumbles under the sonic assault.

Name : Tony Hicks / Alias : San Jose Mercury News
"Hot Pursuit" isn't something you should pursue. Ever.

Name : Stephanie Zacharek / Alias : Village Voice
[Witherspoon] seems unafraid to cut loose, and she and Vergara make a terrific team.

Name : John Anderson / Alias : Wall Street Journal
While she can make static cinema as well as anybody in the boys club - Hot Pursuit is solid evidence of that - Ms. Fletcher also monkeys with the conventions enough to make one wonder what kind of mischief she could ultimately commit.

Name : Katie Rife / Alias : AV Club
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.

Name : Inkoo Kang / Alias : TheWrap
If you've ever wondered what an Adam Sandler film starring Reese Witherspoon would look like, "Hot Pursuit" is it.

Name : Peter Howell / Alias : Toronto Star
If there's any sexist cliche or sitcom groaner missed by the guilty parties behind this cop-and-robber coupling, it's not for want of trying.

Name : Kevin C. Johnson / Alias : St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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.

Name : Gary Thompson / Alias : Philadelphia Inquirer
Short on laughs, even at 87 minutes.

Name : Andrew Barker / Alias : Variety
Reese Witherspoon and Sofia Vergara can't save this lazy, unfunny action-comedy.

Name : David Ehrlich / Alias : Time Out
One of them is short and the other one is Colombian - that's pretty much all there is to this milquetoast buddy comedy that ought to have premiered directly on seat-back airplane televisions.

Name : Joe Neumaier / Alias : New York Daily News
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.

Name : James Berardinelli / Alias : ReelViews
There's hardly an area in which Hot Pursuit is not found lacking.

Name : Bill Goodykoontz / Alias : Arizona Republic
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.

Name : Mick LaSalle / Alias : San Francisco Chronicle
In a pairing of Witherspoon and Vergara, you might expect Vergara to be the funny one. But the script has Witherspoon playing for laughs, and Vergara acting as straight man. The balance is off.

Name : Wesley Morris / Alias : Grantland
The dueling accents are meant to be part of some mounting joke, in which each woman sounds like an idiot to the other. It's not funny. Neither is most of the movie, which throws these two at a wall of gags and hopes they stick.

Name : Ann Hornaday / Alias : Washington Post
There isn't one joke, sight gag or piece of slapstick tomfoolery that lands with any success or originality .

Name : Rex Reed / Alias : New York Observer
I am tempted to say it's another sorry example of what women have to do to keep an acting career going today, when all the juicy roles go to men. Unfortunately they have only themselves to blame. They are both listed in the credits as executive producers.

Name : Tom Long / Alias : Detroit News
The only thing hot about "Hot Pursuit" is its scant 87-minute running time. And it still feels like four hours.

Name : Ty Burr / Alias : Boston Globe
In the pro forma end-credit outtakes, we see the stars muff their lines, mug for the camera, and generally have a good time. It's nice that someone does.

Name : Christy Lemire / Alias : ChristyLemire.com
It's actually, actively worse than you think it's going to be.

Name : Betsy Sharkey / Alias : Los Angeles Times
So bad you'd think it was directed by the worst sort of male chauvinist director.

Name : Jake Coyle / Alias : Associated Press
"Hot Pursuit" feels like a comedy that forgot its comedian.

Name : Peter Travers / Alias : Rolling Stone
A laugh could die of loneliness in this shrill, slapstick buddy farce. The proven comic gifts of Witherspoon and Vergara have gone MIA.

Name : Richard Roeper / Alias : Chicago Sun-Times
"Hot Pursuit" features one of the worst and most forced performances of Reese Witherspoon's career, an irritating performance by Sofia Vergara(whom I love on 'Modern Family') and a seemingly endless parade of lazy and arbitrary plot twists and turns.

Name : Sara Stewart / Alias : New York Post
I'm a sucker for outtakes during end credits, even - maybe especially - when they're attached to subpar comedies like this one. Everyone was having such a hilarious time! I wish I could say the same!

Name : Bilge Ebiri / Alias : New York Magazine/Vulture
You could easily imagine these two in a sharper, edgier comedy. Maybe, if Hot Pursuit is a hit, the filmmakers can take a mulligan and reunite them for a faster, funnier sequel.

Name : Claudia Puig / Alias : USA Today
It's ill-conceived, not funny, overbearing and not in any way worth watching.

Name : Stephen Whitty / Alias : Newark Star-Ledger
For someone with a background in choreography, Fletcher has no idea of how to sell physical comedy. Characters stumble around and drop things but there's no grace to their clumsiness, no punchline at the end of their embarrassment.

Name : A.O. Scott / Alias : New York Times
We are in the midst of a comedy boom, and within it an explosion of feminist and woman-driven humor, but the news has apparently not reached Warner Bros. headquarters.