REVIEW: Identity Thief

Courtesy of Universal

Identity Thief isn’t a very good movie for a number of reasons. The plot is unrealistic, the characters are either despicable or cartoons, and the way everything wraps up is flat-out absurd. Still, I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t funny. I laughed a lot and didn’t start thinking about the film’s many flaws until the drive home. The credit for that goes to stars Jason Bateman and Melissa McCarthy, both of whom deserve to be in much better movies than this one.

Bateman reunites with Seth Gordon, his Horrible Bosses director, for this story about Sandy Patterson, who gets his identity stolen because of his unisex name. Because the movie takes place in a world where police force victims to catch their own assailants, Sandy has a week to track down Diana (McCarthy) – with absolutely no help from the authorities – before he loses his shot at a dream job that will provide for his wife (Amanda Peet) and daughters.

Of course, things don’t go as planned. Diana proves to be quite crafty, and the two must also stay ahead of a crazed skip tracer (the always intriguing Robert Patrick) and a pair of murderous gangsters (T.I. and Genesis Rodriguez) who teleported in from a much different movie.

Most people already know that Bateman is a tremendously gifted comedic actor. (If you haven’t seen Arrested Development, add all three seasons to your Netflix queue immediately.) However, fewer people know how great McCarthy is – or at least they didn’t until a couple of years ago.

She has been kicking around Hollywood for over a decade, turning in solid supporting performances in both film and television. But most people became familiar with the brilliant comedienne through her revelatory work in Bridesmaids, which earned her a Best Supporting Actress nomination. Her work in Identity Thief, which is already a massive hit, proves she’s no flash in the pan. We’re going to be seeing her endearing face on movie posters for years to come.

It is only through sheer force of will that Bateman and McCarthy are able to make the movie funny. Neither plays a character the audience wants to root for. Sandy is a pushover at his job, a doofus who kicks off the plot by giving a total stranger his name, date of birth and social security number over the phone. It’s tough to feel for someone who does that, particularly after another character calls him a financial whiz just a couple of scenes later.

Diana is even more problematic because she’s a terrible human being. Sandy semi-jokingly calls her a sociopath at one point, but the label’s too accurate to be funny. Craig Mazin’s screenplay provides her with a Planes, Trains & Automobiles-esque sob story to justify her behavior, but it’s meaningless after witnessing how much she has wrecked Sandy’s life. Gordon and Mazin make a halfhearted attempt to acknowledge this in the closing minutes, but it still feels like everyone’s way too happy after the events that have transpired.

Identity Thief is rated R for sexual content and language. 

Grade: C+