It’s nice to have this film in cinemas. Who doesn’t like the idea of a buddy comedy starring Reese Witherspoon as an uptight cop and Sofia Vergara as her volatile charge? People who hate ice cream and bank holidays. That’s who.

Hot Pursuit is, in short, the sort of film you'd be quite happy for other people to see. It's almost entirely useless, but its loud, brash heart is in roughly the right place. Witherspoon, also a producer, plays the daughter of an upstanding police officer who dies heroically before the opening credits have played out.

We are then brought forward to find Officer Reese – who has embarrassed herself as a rookie – working behind a desk in the evidence room.

A faint hint of promotion emerges when she is asked to help accompany the wife of a drug baron who has agreed to testify in court.

The usual sorts of confusion ensue as we travel noisily across dangerous parts of Texas.

The degree of stereotyping going on here harks back to 1970s sitcoms in the vein of Mind Your Language. To be fair, Witherspoon's character is just as broadly drawn as Vergara's: anal, self-righteous, repressed.

The Latin firecracker is, however, that bit more invidious a creation. Will she help her white antagonist loosen up and connect with her inner sex goddess? You know it, girl.

There are, to be fair, a few pathetic attempts to undermine preconceptions. “Oh the brown lady cannot read a book,” hisses Vergara sarcastically in response to a particularly outrageous supposition. But the film is, here, seeking to both have and eat entire pantries of dubious cake.

Along the way, the script also manages to undercut any imagined feminist energies by forcing a useful man upon the emotionally hopeless Witherspoon.

None of which would matter very much if the jokes were any better. Sadly, virtually every gag is prematurely visible from astronomical distances. Indeed, you probably know every punchline already.