Identity Thief

 

If there's anything worse than a comedy with no laughs, it's a comedy that flat out stops trying to go for laughs in the last half hour, and turns into a soggy, sappy sentimental tearjerker.  Identity Thief is guilty of both.  This is a movie that starts out with gags about projectile vomiting, and ends with a character talking through sobs about how they have no one in their life, while violin music plays on the soundtrack.  To be honest, I don't know which part of the film offended me more.

The movie is intended to be a star vehicle for Melissa McCarthy, who has been working steadily for the past 15 years or so, but grabbed everyone's attention with her memorable supporting role in Bridesmaids.  This is her first lead role in a film, and while the script doesn't really give her anything funny to do, you certainly can't accuse her of phoning her performance in.  She's energetic, and seems to be giving it all up there on the screen.  But to what end?  She seems to be working extra hard to liven up this material, but it just doesn't work.  As lively as she is, she ends up going down with the material.  Her co-star is Jason Bateman, who can be very likable and funny, and has been in the past.  Here, he's stuck in the role of a wimpy straight man.  All he's required to do is look exhausted and roll his eyes, while McCarthy hams it up.  Despite the fact he gets top billing, his character is just along for the ride, and he seems to know it.

Bateman plays Sandy Patterson, an up-tight family man who finds his entire life thrown in a tailspin when his identity is stolen by a woman in Florida (McCarthy).  The woman, named Diana, uses his name, social security and credit card numbers to rack up expensive tabs in bars, and go on wild shopping and beauty salon sprees.  Meanwhile, the police catch up with the actual Sandy, and question him as to why he missed a court date in Florida. (Diana's wild night at the bar using his name ends in an arrest.) This is how Sandy finds out that his identity has been stolen, and so he decides to fly down to Florida, track the woman down, and bring her to the authorities.  He follows her to her home in order to confront her, only to find out that Diana is involved with some violent criminals who are gunning after her for selling them some bad credit cards.  The two are forced to drive cross country together, avoiding the thugs, as well as a bounty hunter who is after Diana.

Identity Thief starts out as one sort of bad movie, and ends up being a completely different kind before its over.  Oh sure, the movie starts out harmless enough, but once Sandy and Diana are forced to hit the road, turning the movie into a mismatched buddy comedy, it turns into a hopeless barrage of unfunny sex jokes, forced slapstick, and the usual trappings of the road trip comedy that I discussed in length in my review of The Guilt Trip less than two months ago.  The screenplay by Craig Mazin (The Hangover Part II) misses the laughs at just about every opportunity.  I remember smiling once, but I never actually laughed at anything that happened in the film's very long nearly two hour running time.  This is also one of those movies that feels a lot longer than it actually is, thanks to the fact I found it impossible to be involved with anything going on.  The characters aren't interesting to begin with, and if they're not saying or doing anything funny, we the audience only end up fighting a losing battle as to why we should care what happens to them.

But the movie wants us to care about these characters.  Oh, does it want us to.  The forced manipulations take center stage in the third act when the film just completely forgets about even trying to be funny, and we get a bunch of unsuccessful dramatic scenes where McCarthy sobs and talks about how she never had a real family, or anybody to love her.  Somehow, this is supposed to make Bateman see her in a different light.  Heck, instead of turning her in, he instead invites her to his home to have dinner with his wife and kids.  We get to see McCarthy bonding with the kids over the dinner table, and even Bateman's wife warming up to her before the night is over.  It's so forced and handled in such a heavy handed manner, I almost couldn't believe what I was seeing.  The last half of the movie forces onto us so much sentimental crap, I wanted to scream.

 

Identity Thief would have been just a disappointing movie if it had stayed a road trip comedy, but because it turns into sappy drama, it becomes an offensively cloying bad movie.  I walked in hoping for laughs, but instead got a sermon about how criminals who steal your identity are really just wounded little lost children at heart looking for somebody to love them.  I'll give the movie credit for one thing, I certainly wasn't expecting that.

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