Pursuit

If we're talking John Cusack vehicles, you might wanna opt for "Hot Pursuit" as opposed to "Pursuit."

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“Pursuit” (opening in select theaters – including Indianapolis’ Studio Movie Grill – and available on VOD beginning Friday, Feb. 18) is an objectively bad movie, but I’ll be damned if it ain’t a fascinatingly entertaining one.

Emile Hirsch plays a New York-based, Uzi-wielding, facially-tattooed and mulleted hacker named Rick Calloway whose wife Rachel (Shelby Yardley) has been kidnapped. His Arkansas-based crime lord father John (John Cusack) might’ve had a hand in kidnapping her and is currently in custody of their son Troy (Hirsch’s real-life son Valor). Rick runs afoul of Detective Mike Breslin (Jake Manley – this dude looks like an early ‘90s Kevin Dillon cosplaying as an early ‘90s Brad Pitt) in attempting to retrieve Rachel.

Breslin has marital issues of his own – his pregnant wife Shannon (Alexandria DeBerry) was hurled off their apartment’s balcony by some pissed-off cartel members. Rick knows these creeps’ identities and offers ‘em up to Breslin in exchange for his assistance in rescuing Rachel.

The action moves from New York to Lonoke, Ark. where Breslin teams with local cops Zoe Carter (Elizabeth Faith Ludlow, currently of HBO Max’s “Peacemaker”) and the hilariously-named Taye Biggs (William Katt, hella far removed from his days as “The Greatest American Hero”) to investigate Rachel’s abduction. If John didn’t have a hand in kidnapping Rachel, the rival outfit fronted by Frank Diego (Andrew Stevens, co-star of countless Shannon Tweed Skinemax movies that dudes my age came and came of age to) and his gay son John (Graham Patrick Martin) did. (Did the screenwriters run out of names or are they just super-lazy?!!!)