Which are you.a Thief or a Sucker?

'Identity Thief' Film Review

Director; Seth Gordon

Starring; Jason Bateman

Melissa McCarthy

You see this one, you will not like her.

Wednesday night I had a choice, I had two premieres that I was invited to see. One being the manic magicians film, 'The Amazing Burt Wunderstone', with Steve Carrell, Steve Buscemi and Jim Carrey and  the 'Identity Thief' with Jason Bateman and Melissa McCarthy. I tossed, I turned, I tumbled. There was a lot of t's. In the end, I tossed a coin, and it came up 'Identity Thief', so did I turn out to be a sucker?

This one scene is one of the rare laughs in the film.

Plot

Sandy Patterson, Jason Bateman's character, is a run of the mill, everyday joe who is trying to get by with his family in tow. He's scraping the barrel, earning just enough to keep his family afloat, he has two kids, and another on the way. This point is really drilled home, as it is mentioned a multitude of times before the first half hour of the film. We are then introduced to "Sandy Patterson", the identity thief "Diana". She is loud, crass and incredibly annoying. When Sandy(real Sandy) finds out that Diana is spending all his hard earned money he decides to head to Florida where she is located and take her down. Comedy fumbling's ensue, now and then.

Good

I'm writing this right now trying to remember what honestly was good about this film. On paper it should be funny, these two actors are comedy pedigree. Sandy is a decent enough character, he has one or two good lines but I can't bring the specifics to mind right now. Diana has some quotable lines, that's really it. There is a wonderful sense of family and sincere emotion at times but it is drowned out by the incessant gross out jokes and really disturbing sex scenes.

This leads to a scene that haunts me, deeply.

Bad

There is a lot of stuff, though Diana is the funnier of the two characters she is also the least likable of the two also. For two thirds of the film she is completely unlikable, I think that is fine for a film, the characters you don't like usually have some feature that counter balances the reason you don't like them, this turns it around from hating the character to you loving how you hate them. This is not what you get from Diana, you just hate her, simple as that. The villian of the piece is completely tacked on, he has no stake in the whole film other than Diana apparently screwed him over at some point in the past, and is literally in two scene which last five minutes all together. Between gross thumbed soup and really, really weird sexual tension between Diana and every male character in the film you will be wondering why you're sitting in the theatre.

Ugly

This is not a good film, the premise reminds me of 'Planes, Trains and Automobiles", you know without planes, trains or any sense of humour or proper character or plot development. Simple as that.

3/10