“Hot Pursuit,” starring Reese Witherspoon and Sofia Vergara, joins a long line of derivative, lazily written one-offs looking to cash in on the success of the movies they brazenly rip off, in this case buddy comedies spanning “Midnight Run” to “The Heat.”

Derivation in and of itself isn’t a crime, especially in Hollywood, where the same 10 stories get recycled with the metronomic regularity of shrink appointments and Botox treatments. But even when you’re phoning it in, at least don’t make it a robo-call.

Anne Fletcher, who made her bones working as a choreographer before directing “Step Up,” “The Proposal” and a clutch of forgettable rom-coms, makes a shockingly sloppy hash of “Hot Pursuit,” in which Witherspoon plays a tightly wound police officer and Vergara plays the voluptuous drug cartel associate the lady-cop is tasked with protecting.

There isn’t one joke, sight gag or piece of slapstick tomfoolery that lands with any success or originality in “Hot Pursuit,” which was written by David Feeney and John Quaintance (and, most likely, legions of the uncredited hacks who are habitually enlisted to “punch up” listless studio filler such as this enterprise). We’re supposed to accept lame cracks about Witherspoon’s height and her character’s sexlessness as genuine zingers, while Vergara’s role is to overcome horrible cinematography and try to breathe recognizable life into yet another brassy Latina spitfire whose accent is just hilarious.

Guess what? It’s not. Nor is anything else in “Hot Pursuit,” including the lesbian jokes, menstruation gags, Witherspoon’s cocaine shtick or ho-hum stunts involving a deer decoy costume (huh?), an errant senior citizen tour bus and Witherspoon attending a quinceanera in drag. (“Ay, you look like Jose Bieber!”)

Witherspoon, who along with Vergara is credited (blamed?) as a producer, does most of the heavy lifting in “Hot Pursuit,” in which she attempts to resurrect her Tracy Flick persona from “Election” in a Southern-fried incarnation.

But not even her prodigious work ethic can save a movie this misbegotten, especially with Fletcher at the helm: In what appears to be lackadaisical color-timing in post-production, the image on screen often wavers into a pinky-purple blur, and for a brief moment viewers can actually see the heavy black document clips enabling Vergara’s prison jumpsuit to cling to her famously generous curves. If the director is this uninterested in her own movie, then why shouldn’t the audience follow her lead? Message received, duly noted, done. Rated PG-13.