Identity Thief is
a movie you’ll probably struggle to watch. The makers got a little carried away
and forgot this was supposed to be a comedy-drama. They focused more on the
drama and let the comedy slide—so much so that the movie starts to drag and
becomes boring at times.
When you’re
watching a movie that showcases bogus scenes claiming to be reality, and then
you drag it in the direction of drama, all you have is a movie that seems to
have missed the mark more than it planned to.
The leads in the
movie, Melissa McCarthy and Jason Bateman, did their best—I have to say—with a
story that seems baseless. These two put in their all, especially Bateman, who
pulled off the role of a man completely ignorant of life on the other side of the
law. The director, Seth Gordon, needs to step up. He’s had experience directing
films and TV shows, so I was a little surprised he couldn’t bring out the best
in this movie.
The movie plot
revolves around Sandy Patterson (Jason Bateman), whose identity is stolen by a
woman named Diana (Melissa McCarthy). Diana creates a credit card using
Patterson’s details after calling him, pretending to be from his bank.
With this credit
card, Diana goes on a spending spree, painting the town red until she ends up
in jail with a criminal record. Now, the real Sandy faces difficulties as his
credit cards are maxed out, and he has a record—but the face on the mugshot is
a woman’s.
Sandy struggles
at work due to this record and decides to track down Diana, bring her to the
cops, and have her confess to stealing his identity. The idea sounds good to
Sandy at first—until he meets Diana and realizes the task is a Herculean one.
The movie did
have some fun cast members, though. Jon Favreau plays Sandy Patterson’s boss,
Morris Chestnut is the detective investigating the identity theft case, and
even Robert Patrick (the liquid alloy Terminator from Terminator 2) and
rapper T.I. make appearances.
By the end of the movie, I still didn’t get the thrill I felt the makers were hoping for. If I hadn’t seen this movie, it wouldn’t have made any difference. I still stand by saying this isn’t one of Bateman’s best, though he did a good job. This isn’t a must-watch, so don’t bother. I’d advise you to catch Oz the Great and Powerful instead.
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