Identity Thief Reviews

Identity Thief seems like a fun movie.  a woman, play by Melissa McCarthy, pretends to be Jason Bateman's character Sandy Bigelow Patterson, uses his identity, and spends tons of money, get into trouble with drug dealers.  Now Sandy has to pay for McCarthy's debt, and he might loses his job because of it.  While all things seem desperate, Sandy decides to bring the woman back to Denver from Florida so she can get persecuted.  Sounds like a perfect formula for a comedy, huh?  Well, I'm sorry to say that you're wrong- Identity Thief is a good idea that was missed completely 

The movie starts off strong.  It introduces problems, funny characters (McCarthy is just awesome), potential threats, and a solutions for our characters.  However, all of these soon died out.  Don't get me wrong though, the whole movie is glued together by McCarthy's wonderful, and hilarious performances.  But without her, the entire movie will easily fall apart.  The movie features characters play by T.I. and Genesis Rodriguez as killer who want to hunt down Diana (McCarthy's character) because she owes money to their boss- which is play by the awesome actor Jonathan Banks of Breaking Bad.  At the same time, she is also being track down by a skiptracer play by Robert Patrick.  While all these threats sound promising, it becomes a disappointment that none of these characters actually bring any threats.  The two killers never meet up with Diana and Sandy, and through out the whole movie Patrick's character only meet up with our main characters maybe once.  Not to mention that Johnathan Banks only appears in the movie two shots- yes, I say shots and not scenes.  I never seen a movie this underused actors.  It really is a shame.

The plot is not believable either.  I know I'm not supposed to fixated on comedy plot, but come on!  The police really can't do anything to help Sandy?  And Sandy's business partner really can't be more understanding about the situation?  That freeway really doesn't have any cars driven by?  With all these ridiculous scenarios, the last straw for me is when Sandy and Diana need money for their trip back to Denver, and Sandy agrees that Diana should rip-off his former boss.  Really?  A person who recently experienced the pain of having their money stolen agrees to steal others' money?  And the ending of the movie where the family visits Diana in prison?  Sure~  The whole time watching the movie I've been guessing how the movie is going to have a happy ending.  Well, I guess THIS is the best way to end the movie huh?  Aunt Diana is just THAT important to the family?

One small part that bugs me the most is when the two killer visits Big Chuck, play by Modern Family's  Eric Stonestreet, and talks about a traditional neighborhood won't let the two killers stay there due to the neighborhood being a "traditional" one  (the killers are black and Latina).  While the racial thing is an important awareness these day, but it's not like the whole movie brings up a lot of racial problems, so to me this comes out of nowhere.

The movie is only good if you are REALLY bored and have extra money to spend for an afternoon.  But if you want quality comedy, you will sure to be disappointed.  Also, I'm sad that the very sexy Genesis Rodriguez doesn't have a bigger role in the film.

Score: 5/10