Melissa McCarthy has really exploded since Bridesmaids. Always funny and at times downright hilarious, the farmers daughter continues the trend, to some degree, in Identify Thief.
Starring alongside Jason Bateman, Identity Thief is a sometimes hilarious take on people who get their identity stolen and subsequently find themselves in all kinds of grief. Diana (McCarthy) steals Sandy’s (Bateman) identity as well as every ounce of credit and bank balance he has. After a lacklustre approach from the police, Sandy decides to take matters into his own hands and track down the woman who is destroying his life. Once he does, things take a turn for the worst for our identity thief as some undesirables decide to get violent. From here, our thief and victim embark on a bit of a road trip together, while attempting to save Sandy’s job.
McCarthy as mentioned, is rather hilarious here. Not consistently throughout, but she does provide a number of real laugh out loud moments. Jason Bateman plays it straight here and is on the receiving end of many of the gags. The real stand out though, is Harold Cornish. Played by Jon Favreau rather brilliantly. And while it’s a small role, his arrogance is a real pop corn choker. It’s a pity we didn’t get more of Favreau!
There’s not a lot wrong with Identity Thief when it comes to the comedy. More times than not, it works. Unfortunately it tries a little bit too hard to wear it’s heart on its sleeve and gets quite muddled in its progression. One minute it’s a comedy and other times it attempts to whole feel good / border line drama vibe. And it just doesn’t work. It would work fine as a straight comedy, but with a running time of nearly 2 hours, it feels over long and dragged out. And you can blame the more “humane” elements in the story for dragging things out.
Overall, Identity Thief’s biggest problem is it’s own identity. It’s not quite sure what it is! However, it is just about watchable and where it works, it works quite well.
