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Crime thrillers often follow the game of cat-and-mouse that plays out between a cop and a crook. But the crime thriller Pursuit kicks it up a few notches, taking the story of a cop’s mission to catch the bad guy and loading it with more cops and more crooks.
Pursuit follows hacker Rick Calloway (Emile Hirsch) as he tries to rescue his wife, who’s been kidnapped by a cartel. His search puts him on the radar of NYPD Detective Breslin (Jake Manley). When Rick is arrested and transferred back home to Arkansas, he knows that there’s a price on his head, so Breslin agrees to travel with him for protection. But when Rick goes missing, Breslin finds himself working with a couple of small town cops to try to find him back—only to end up caught in the middle of a mess of criminal partnerships and rivalries.
This big-city cop definitely isn’t prepared for what he finds in small Arkansas town. In their attempt to super-size the action and drama of the typical crime thriller, the filmmakers threw in so many characters that it’s impossible to keep track of them all. There are crime bosses who are working together but also possibly working against each other. There are cops and random tough guys—most of whom are either working for the criminals who apparently run the town or tip-toeing around the crimes committed all around them. Some of the characters show up and get little more than a mention—though, later in the film, they’re suddenly important to the story. Or other characters are given backstories and connections to the main characters, only to end up being entirely unnecessary to the plot. It’s overstuffed with characters and connections and drama, making it feel needlessly complex.
From the beginning, everything about this movie is cluttered and overdone—and more than just a little bit cheesy. The performances—especially Hirsch’s, with his bad face tattoos and his perplexing stoner drawl—are often difficult to watch. It’s the kind of movie that you might check out on your favorite streaming service, only to give up after a few messy minutes.
Though the cast listing—including Hirsch and ’80s icon John Cusack, who plays Rick’s dad—may catch your eye, Pursuit is a disorganized mess of a movie that doesn’t live up to its stars’ abilities. There’s so much going on in this movie, yet so little makes any sense.
Pursuit opens in select theaters and on demand on February 18, 2022.
Listen to the review on Reel Discovery:
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