Identity Thief Reviews

A great concept that suffers from relying too much on running gags and having some unfortunate sub-plots that don't quite add up at the end.

McCarthy shows some solid range in her role, but this comedy ultimately fails in it's ability to deliver memorable jokes and a fully engaging plot once the credits roll.

From the director of 'Horrible Bosses' but alas this isn't anywhere near as good. Simple premise, a woman steals a family mans identity and maxes out his credit cards causing him all manner of issues which involve the law.

This is one of those films that just didn't sit well with me, the whole idea made me feel uncomfortable right from the start. This bloke has a nice happy family life which is brought to ruins by some fat binge drinking female who you just wanna smack in the face. Now I realise the director probably wants you to hate this thief character but it doesn't work, at no point in the film did I like her or feel for her, even when you're clearly suppose to with the sappy friendship that builds during the film and the obvious fluffy ending.

The whole time I'm watching all I could think of was what I'd do in that situation, if this happened to me, I sure as hell wouldn't team up with the woman and do what Bateman's character does, screw that!. The film is kinda annoying and just gave me constant nasty thoughts for McCarthy's thief character and how I'd kill her if it was me. On top of that she isn't in the least bit funny, neither is Bateman, the whole road trip pairing is really laboured and doesn't gel and nothing much happens throughout the film which is funny either.

The whole film is just about screwing people over with the added obligatory car chase and obligatory nasty criminals trying to kill the main duo, there isn't even much point in that sub plot. What's so stupid about this is the fact that at the start of the film Bateman's character discovers what's happened to him and eventually gets backed up by the police, yet his boss still says he gonna fire him for shit that's been proved wasn't him!! huh?.

Even the police detective doesn't fully believe he's innocent for gods sake! despite the fact its pretty clear identity fraud has been committed. That's like your bank calling you saying you've had suspicious activity on your account, you confirm the activity wasn't you but the bank doesn't believe you!. So no one at the start of the film basically believes Bateman's character is innocent, clearly he's done everything and no one believes in fraud. So to clear himself he goes off on this ridiculous road trip to find the culprit and bring her to justice! yeah like you'd do that, makes no sense whatsoever.

Literately nothing to recommend here, nothing funny about any of it, over worked, overly stretched, forced, awkward to watch with no redeeming qualities. Its like a wannabe 'Planes Trains and Automobiles' type vehicle but fails badly on every front. End of the day what is funny about something like identity fraud?!.

Although the leads are likeable from the get go this film wastes that potential, awkwardly rehashing every odd-couple-on-the-road cliche you could think of. A rainy day leftover at best.

Mediocre comedy that's purely a vehicle for Melissa McCarthy. It's hard to watch a comedic actor of her stature go through the motions like this. But it's not her fault; blame has to be put on the crushingly mediocre direction of Seth Gordon ("Four Christmases," "Horrible Bosses").

If McCarthy had been allowed to direct herself, I'm sure "Identity Thief" would have been vastly better.

Identity Thief is an awful comedy that just suffers due to a poorly written script. The jokes are very bland and there isn't much to enjoy here. I really enjoyed Melissa McCarthy's work in Bridesmaids and she is a talented actress, but here her talents are wasted on this movie that simply doesn't deliver any good, solid laughs. The biggest problem with the movie is that it is plagued with clichés. Many of the film's elements are taken from better films and it is just lazy and uninspired. This film could have been very good, but instead it fails to be funny, and the comedy bits ends up being annoying than humorous. This is one example of a film that had potential of being so much better than what it turned out to be, and it's a shame that with two very funny lead actors that the movie just failed in being an entertaining, worthwhile comedy that is actually worth seeing. Identity Thief is just isn't worth your time, and if you're expecting a good time, you'll be sadly disappointed. This is a pointless movie that wastes two great talents on a film that relied on a lazy script. As of yet this is one of the worst comedies this year, and we can only hope that there will be far funnier films that will come out in the following months. I expected something better than this and sadly this one just didn't make me laugh, and the end result was a tiresome film that never should have been made.

Well, this movie was barely passable. Melissa McCarthy is really good. The rest of the movie set around her is fair at best.

This was hilarious with a surprising amount of heart.

There are a few funny scenes in Identity Thief, but they are completely wasted in this overblown and bloated film with an absolutely ludicrous plotline that seems to have every idea they come up with for the script in it in hopes that you find something funny. Take out about 20-30 minutes, a couple of the subplots, and this would be a tolerable and decently funny comedy. Unfortunately, we have this almost 2 hour long scattershot film with too many elements to mesh well. The attempts at drama are half hearted and made me want to gag. There's just no way a person who had their identity stolen from them would ever befriend the person who stole it from them, but especially not his entire family who end up loving Melissa McCarthy's character by the end. It's just too sentimental. All of the side characters are just annoying and add pointless and unfunny scenes. Jason Bateman I have been a fan of for a while now, but I think he needs to stop playing this same role over and over in similar comedy films. He always plays the straight-laced family man who gets thrown into chaos. He's funnier than this film deserves and needs to raise his standards. Melissa McCarthy had her breakout role in Bridesmaids, which she was very good in, but I didn't care for her character in this much. The director is Seth Gordon, who's film Horrible Bosses was actually one of the few comedies I have enjoyed over the past couple of years, but he didn't seem to know what to do with this film and never reigned anyone in. There's simply not enough here to recommend at all.

Wow, am I the only person who loved this? Anyway, Melissa McCarthy is a force of nature and alone worth the price of a night out...Justin Bateman is a superb straight man. The story...I don't know...do you really go to a movie like this to get plot pointers? I liked it that everyone--drug dealers, bounty hunters, Bateman--were after her. So that was exciting. Their threesome--McCarthy, Bateman, and pick-up--in the motel was hilarious. I don't know...maybe it's just been a long winter.

Two talented stars in a crappy, ridiculous script.

So, with a cast this good and a director who has helmed some great projects in the past, you would think that this time around, it would at least be a tad enjoyable, but this film is one non-laughable-moment away from being the worst comedy in years. With almost 2 hours to tell it's bloated "story," I chuckled maybe about 3 times throughout this movie. Once the characters are introduced at the beginning of the film, it does not seem as though it will be as dreadfully bad as it truly is, but rather enjoyable. After Melissa McCarthy's character steals Jason Bateman's ID, all hell breaks loose and a wild goose chase begins, where the film completely falls apart. "Identity Thief" is too long, unfunny, and there is absolutely no pay-off. It is a waste of your time! One of the worst I've seen in 2013!

"Identity Thief" is directed by the director of "Horrible Bosses", Seth Gordon, and if you liked that then this is right up your alley. Jason Bateman stars as a family man in Denver who gets his identity stolen by Melissa McCarthy who lives in Florida. He needs to clear his name from all the financial and criminal things she has done with his name, so he heads to Florida to bring her to justice in Denver. Once they meet up the movie becomes a full on road trip movie that is hilarious start to finish. Bateman and McCarthy are exactly how you want them to be, and this sits perfectly with their other comedies. McCarthy is probably the funniest woman in Hollywood right now. She has the personality and the physical comedy that makes her light up the screen. She's the villain of the movie, and you find yourself rooting for her, and liking her just as much as Batemans everyman. This is the first real comedy to come out in 2013(unless I'm forgetting something), and it's a great way to start the year off. Hopefully the rest of 2013's comedies are up to par with this. Good adult R rated comedy, that anyone needing a laugh will enjoy.

In one of those movies where the funniest moments are in the trailers, "Identity Thief" is director Seth Gordon's hit and miss follow up to the hilarious "Horrible Bosses", and is also nothing more than a less consistently funny version of "Due Date".

The Plot: This movie lays out the improbable (even for a comedy) set-up of a man in Colorado named Sandy Patterson (funny name to give a man, huh? Well, I guess it's funny the first few times this joke is told) played by the very much underrated Jason Bateman, who gets his identity stolen by a woman in Florida, played by Melissa McCarthy. After the police outright refuse to help him, Sandy sets out on a quest of sorts to Florida in order to bring McCarthy's character back to Colorado himself (basically doing the police's job for them) so that she may stand trial for her crimes. Hilarious!

Now, when Bateman and McCarthy find themselves in a road trip situation (about 30 minutes in) it is only then that Gordon seems to let these two very funny comedic actors run wild and "Identity Thief" begins to see comedic moments that actually work. In saying that, as I stated before, aside from all of the funny scenes that the trailers had to offer, and one laugh out loud sex scene (that of which occurs in the unevenly entertaining middle portion of this film) "Identity Thief" is bookended and sporadically injected with more unfunny and contrived moments, which consistently work to drag this movie back down into the still waters of mediocrity time and time again. Furthermore, while the beginning is slow and shockingly sigh inducing, the ending's ineffectiveness clearly notifies audiences about how flawed Gordon's visual storytelling abilities are in this instance. OK, so to avoid ruining this very predictable ending, I'll simply put it like this: There was not one moment throughout this film where I did NOT want to see McCarthy's character end up in prison. Call me heartless if you must.

The Acting: OK, while Gordon does attempt to mask how weak this plot is by allowing Bateman to make some funny faces and come through with some snide monotone zingers, as well as allow McCarthy to pursue an Olympic trial's worth of physical comedy, in all actuality the rest of this supporting cast is absolutely worthless. In fact, let's (for a second) run down the list of notable actors who are wasted in this movie: Jon Favreau is only in one scene; wasted, Robert Patrick plays a forgettable bounty hunter; wasted, John Cho is given half of a funny line to say in a 90 minute movie; wasted, T.I. gives one of the more worthless cameos in recent years; wasted, Amanda Peet is such a non-character here that I almost forgot that she was in this movie; hence, she's wasted, Genesis Rodriquez has nice eyebrows, but all in all she's wasted, and Eric Stonestreet...well, he's actually pretty funny in his one scene with McCarthy.

Final Thought: While "Identity Thief" does contain pockets of funny, not even Bateman or McCarthy flailing about can help this film fully recover from its own flimsy premise, implausible actions and a failed ploy by the director to display any sort of sympathy for Melissa McCarthy's character. So, at the end of the day, it is not the two leads that let this movie down, it is the material itself, which unfortunately causes "Identity Thief" to be a rental recommendation at best. That said, "Identity Thief" is still funnier than "Bridesmaids".

Written by Markus Robinson, Edited by Nicole I. Ashland

Follow me on Twitter @moviesmarkus

IDENTITY THIEF is the bad road movie everyone mistakenly heaped on THE GUILT TRIP. Dull, sluggish, overlong, and with long stretches between laughs, this stinker is somewhat saved by its committed lead performances. Jason Bateman, who has become so good at performing the Everyman Slow Burn, is Sandy Patterson, a struggling Colorado Accounts Manager who finds he's been cleaned out by Diana (Melissa McCarthy), a trashy Floridian (and in movies, are there really any other kind?) who steals identities as readily as THE BACHELOR says, "I can see myself falling in love with this woman".

The hard-to-swallow premise expects us to believe that the police are of no help in a situation like this, other than to expect our hero to do his own extraditing. I suspect a well-placed call to the FBI could have saved the audience 107 minutes of watching Sandy and Diana bicker in a car that ever-so-slowly makes its way west. I guess you have to roll with that setup or else you'll have a tough time watching the rest. I suppose writer Craig Mazin (who up through now has written some aggressively shitty movies) didn't trust that our stars could carry such a stillborn plot, so he's tacked on not one, but two "B" storylines involving different bounty hunters out to kill Diana. There is nothing of interest in either, and yet much screen time is spent watching one stupid shootout after another.

There's even a pointless and overly extended sequence involving Eric Stonestreet (MODERN FAMILY) as a rich cowboy who seduces Diana. It seems to exist to show that even a pathetic creature like Diana is someone people can love, but that point is made, and should have only been made, by Bateman's character. It drags the movie down and grotesquely proves to the world that Stonestreet can play a straight character. Whoo hoo to that!

I also felt terrible for Amanda Peet, who is saddled with the thankless role of Bateman's wife. Given nothing to do except literally phone in scene after scene of her, yes, being on the phone with Bateman, this extremely talented actor is merely collecting a paycheck in a big studio movie so she can hopefully get her iconic indie performance some day. Another pretty, typecast actor who finally proved herself with her indelible performance in MONSTER, Charleze Theron, comes to mind.

Yet...this movie's saving grace is McCarthy, who despite the script's shortcomings, the lackluster direction, the terribly TV score, and the bland cinematography, remains fully invested in her character. It's a blast to watch her throw punches, get drunk, and suddenly wake up from unconsciousness with a sharp gulp of air. She's like Honey Boo Boo all grow'd up, prancing from spending spree to bar binges. McCarthy also manages to dig deeper in a handful of scenes where her devastating loneliness comes to the surface. It's all extremely in the name of broad, schticky comedy but she has the chops, the comic timing, and the balls-to-the-wall bravery to shine even in this sub-par effort. I look forward to McCarthy getting the platform to show off some of that pain and depth in future films, much like she did in the little-seen THE NINES. She's clearly a major talent.

A hopelessly average Thief unable to completely steal away with John Q. Moviegoer's funny bone, the remains of this so-called comedy aren't exactly criminally inane but they're not really worth fully identifying either. Oh, it's a combo platter of A-List comedic talent and a promising premise to boot, only the execution's a bit, well, shoddily executed. Chock full of contrived writing and cliched gags, Identity Thief at least boasts a hilarious twosome who'd be on top of their A-Game were it not for the oft-recycled buddy comedy hook. Unfortunately, their talents alone just aren't enough to rob audiences blind with laughter, try as they hopelessly might.

In this R-rated comedy, corporate accountant Sandy Bigelow Patterson (Bateman) has a week to hunt down and bring back the female con artist who's stolen his identity (McCarthy) before her spending spree ruins his life.

Jason Bateman might play one character, but it's a damn humorous one at that. From the small screen's Arrested Development to the big screen's Horrible Bosses, his drolly sarcastic and put-upon Everyman wrings laughs out of uncommonly dire circumstances. Likewise, on the small screen's Mike and Molly and big screen's Bridesmaids, Melissa McCarthy gives consistently funny lip service as an abrasive and colorful loud mouth. Here, they ably perform the same tasks under the very capable direction of Seth Gordon. The connect-the-dots material, however (someway somehow, screenwriter Craig Mazin works tired jokes involving inner city hoods AND campfire shenanigans into the same story), mostly leads to Dullsville-population: You. Just like their audience, these comedians deserve better.

Bottom line: The Wince of Thieves.

Bateman and McCarthy are good, but they need a better film than this. From the trailer, I was expecting a really good road comedy. Instead, I was majorly disappointed. A lot of the best parts are in the commercial. The tone is off. It can't decide if it wants to be a comedy or an action film or a drama. The pacing is off. They had a really good idea for a film, but didn't execute it correctly. I am hoping McCarthy's next film, The Heat, with Sandra Bullock, will be better than this one.

Just another typical run-of-the-mill travel across the country ruining stuff in your path as you go along from state to state. The most recent movie that comes to mind is Due Date with Robert Downey Jr. Identity Thief has two very likeable stars in Bateman and McCarthy who are also two of my favorites. However, their in a difficult situation with the script and plot. Useless bad guys coming after them and and some gimmicks that don't really work mean this movie is nowhere close to its potential with its stars.