Identity Thief
(2013)Jason Bateman (Arrested Development) stars in this comedy caper as a good-natured Joe forced to hunt down the woman (Oscar-nominated Bridesmaids actress Melissa McCarthy) who stole his identity - before her shopping spree completely empties his bank accounts. From the director of Horrible Bosses.... More
Unlimited funds have allowed Diana (McCarthy) to live it up on the outskirts of Miami, where the queen of retail buys whatever strikes her fancy. There's only one glitch: the ID she's using to finance these sprees reads "Sandy Bigelow Patterson" and it belongs to an accounts rep (Bateman) who lives halfway across the country. With only one week to hunt down the con-artist before his world implodes, the real Sandy heads south to confront the woman with an all-access pass to his life.Hide
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Directed by Seth Gordon
Starring Jason Bateman, Melissa McCarthy, John Cho, Jon Favreau, Genesis Rodriguez, Eric Stonestreet, Amanda Peet, Robert Patrick
Written by Michael Markowitz, John Francis Daley, Jonathan M. Goldstein
On Demand, DVD & Blu-Ray
Available from 7 providers
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Identity Thief
BY Rhys-Rushton superstar
Apart from the occasional giggle. Identity Thief poses an improbable series of events and attempts to juggle them into a story-line of believable circumstances.
If you have to see it, it won't disappoint if you don't have high hopes to start with.
I thought the acting saved the film from being a total flop but still doesn't save it from my 2/5.
BY alexc lister
Well given that Jason Bateman and Melissa McCarthy are the leads in this movie you would expect it to be hilarious......
Instead it turned out to be a a bo-hoo fest about parents not really caring about their kids.
BY Moose lister
I was looking for a few good laughs...and given the cast and the plot scenario I expected to snort coke up my nose (cola I mean) or choke on my popcorn with laughter at least once or twice...but that never eventuated.
Loved Melissa McCarthy in Bridesmaids...but sadly she didn't hit the mark in this one. I think I managed to raise a smile at one point, but all in all the comedy was a bit... More one dimensional and even the physical comedy wasn't great.
Plot was unbelievable, but would have forgiven that if the acting and interplay between the main characters was funnier. Unfortunately it wasn't.
2 stars, I suggest you give it a miss.Hide
BY jaynine superstar
I expected slapstick comedy and funny dialogues; the trailer /screamed/ COMEDY, but it didn't have enough. It had such a big potential to be funny and the actors had history of comedy films, but this one had more of a drama-bomb than I thought. I was perched at the edge of my seat desperately hoping something hilarious would happen. This... More movie could have gone much better.Hide
BY Aidan1 superstar
This was a awesome movie so glad i saw it, Melissa McCarthy & Jason Bateman had great chemistry and have already hear that Universal is trying to get a sequel. 5 Stars
The Press Reviews
20%
of critics recommend.
Rotten Tomatoes Score. More reviews on Rotten Tomatoes
Clever premise, witless execution. Full Review
No matter how may times Identity Thief switches tracks, nothing works — it fails as a star vehicle, a recession-era satire, a WTF white-collar-grunt revenge tale, a "Midnight Run"–style buddy flick, a gross-out laughfest and a bathetic tale of broken souls. No amount of stolen guises can fix it. Full Review
Melissa McCarthy’s over-the-top performance as a low-rung grifter enlivens what is otherwise a groan-worthy odd-couple comedy. Full Review
Identity Thief establishes its priorities: Expansive character business is front and center; actual character-building is in the margins, almost off the map. Full Review
It wants to be "Midnight Run" meets "Planes, Trains and Automobiles," but it carries little of the dramatic heft and real-world semi-plausibility of those much superior efforts. Full Review
It is reliant on McCarthy's comedy chops and her ability to deliver improv-type character material, but almost every single one of her scenes looks like an outtake. Full Review
Another rough comic movie road trip helps give car travel a bad name. Full Review
Its stars steal so many laughs from such improbable places that the bumps in this revenge/road trip farce can be mostly forgiven, though not forgotten. Full Review
As is the case with other unsatisfactory diversions, it is entirely possible to ignore the worst parts of this movie... and just wait for Ms. McCarthy and Mr. Bateman to do their things. Full Review
With Identity Thief, Melissa McCarthy proves she's got what it takes to carry a feature, however meager the underlying material. Full Review
BY Adam Fresco Flicks Writer
Director Seth Gordon’s follow-up to Horrible Bosses takes another slight sit-com plot and pumps it to full-length proportions. Sandy (Jason Bateman) travels from Denver to Florida to confront Diana (Melissa McCarthy), who’s stolen his identity and is living it large courtesy of his cash. Thanks to inept police, the stars end up an odd couple on a road trip akin to Planes, Trains and Automobiles – with Bateman in the put-upon straight-man Steve Martin role, and McCarthy a sociopathic version of John Candy. But without a decent script on which to hang their shtick, the pair is too often left floundering.... More
There’s a desperation to be funny – multiple misunderstandings about Sandy being a unisex name, repeated gags at the expense of the overweight and unbalanced, and several car chases as the stars are pursued by Robert Patrick’s redneck bounty hunter, and stereotyped Latino and African-American assassins. Nonetheless there are genuinely funny moments, with Eric Stonestreet (Cameron from TVs Modern Family) stealing big laughs in a scene straight out of a bedroom farce.
Juvenile humour can be fun, as McCarthy proved in Bridesmaids, but at times Identity Thief seems a pale photocopy of Due Date – minus Downey’s charisma and Galifianakis’ goofy charm. When the third act demands we sympathise with McCarthy’s crooked character it’s a jarring leap into sentimentality that draws attention to plotting so poor that by comparison Twilight was positively Shakespearian.
That said, there are large dollops of ribald fun served up on this slapstick road trip - if you can forgive the stereotypical characterisation and ‘been there, done that’ plotting.Hide
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