Mild mannered businessman Sandy Patterson travels from Denver to Florida to confront the deceptively harmless looking woman who has been living it up after stealing Sandy's identity.
A titan of industry is sent to prison after she's caught insider trading. When she emerges ready to rebrand herself as America's latest sweetheart, not everyone she screwed over is so quick to forgive and forget.
Director:
Ben Falcone
Stars:
Melissa McCarthy,
Kristen Bell,
Peter Dinklage
Competition between the maid of honor and a bridesmaid, over who is the bride's best friend, threatens to upend the life of an out-of-work pastry chef.
Dave is a married man with three kids and a loving wife, and Mitch is a single man who is at the prime of his sexual life. One fateful night while Mitch and Dave are peeing in a fountain, lightning strikes and they switch bodies.
Dale, Kurt and Nick decide to start their own business but things don't go as planned because of a slick investor, prompting the trio to pull off a harebrained and misguided kidnapping scheme.
Pete and Debbie are both about to turn 40, their kids hate each other, both of their businesses are failing, they're on the verge of losing their house, and their relationship is threatening to fall apart.
Sandy Patterson (Jason Bateman) gets a nice call confirming his name and other identifying information. The next thing he knows, a spa in Florida is reminding him of his appointment and his credit cards are maxed out. With his identity stolen, Sandy leaves his wife, kids and job to literally bring the thief to justice in Colorado. Keeping tabs on the other Sandy (Melissa McCarthy) and run-ins with bounty hunters is harder than he was expecting, and ultimately the cross-country trip is going to find both Sandys learning life tips from one another.Written by
napierslogs
Critic Rex Reed drew considerable ire when his review singled out Melissa McCarthy's weight, calling her "a hippo", "obese" and "humongous". One of his own many critics was McCarthy's frequent director Paul Feig who cordially invited Reed on Twitter to "go fuck himself". See more »
Goofs
After the car accident on the highway, the grill is back to normal on the Ford that Sandy is driving. Prior to the accident, the grill is dented and damaged. See more »
After the end credits, we hear two lines of dialog from earlier in the movie. The Skiptracer Robert Patrick saying "No, Sandy's a girl's name!" And Sandy Jason Bateman replying "It's not, it's unisex!" See more »
It is deliciously ironic that a movie called Identity Thief has a very tough time building an identity for itself to display to the audience. This movie is a total jumble and lacks enough structure to even attempt to become a decent movie. What saves this movie from being a total disaster are the lead actors which had been on a roll up to this point. For those expecting a deliciously dark follow-up to Horrible Bosses from that same director instead will walk away quite disenchanted and disappointed.
In a nutshell, stressed father and husband Sandy Patterson has his identity stolen resulting in him building up debt that's being accumulated by another person. Desperately in order to save his job and get his life back, he travels down to Florida to find the thief and convince her to return back to Colorado to get things straightened out. This plot is rather ridiculous, which is why it required a screwball or dark comedic taint to remove the absurdity of it all. Unfortunately, despite the trailers and television spots this barely is a dark comedy, and barely works as a comedy to be exact.
Identity Thief is sometimes funny, but never funny enough. It is sometimes dark and twisted, but never truly dark and twisted enough. It's even sometimes emotional and sentimental (very inconsistently I might add), but even that ship sails too soon far too often. Lastly it is sometimes interesting and suspenseful, but, well, you get the point. The intriguing and potentially hilarious premise of a disgruntled victim meeting his money-sucking predator was started by a Floridian teacher, but gets ruined by a bloated and underdeveloped script by Craig Mazin----whom doesn't really have a good repertoire. The mismatched directing of Seth Gordon didn't help either.
It is ultimately the cast that keeps it afloat, even when the script bogs them down. Jason Bateman and Melissa McCarthy work well together and did a great job despite the circumstances, particularly McCarthy. Then check out the rest of this underused staff: Eric Stonestreet, Robert Patrick, Amanda Peet, Genesis Rodriguez, Morris Chestnut, and John Cho. Plenty of good actors and each with the ability to breathe life into the project, but unfortunately just didn't have enough screen time to make an impact.
Bottom Line: Resembling a weak, watered-down useless version of Planes, Trains, and Automobiles instead of the likes of Horrible Bosses and the best of Danny DeVito, Identity Thief struggles to find the right focus and right footing and winds up becoming a movie that isn't funny enough, isn't dramatic enough, isn't wild enough, isn't likable enough, and generally isn't good enough to warrant a second viewing---or a first one. It's one thing to disappoint, but it's a totally different matter when you disappoint underneath so much potential and so much talent at the helm.
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It is deliciously ironic that a movie called Identity Thief has a very tough time building an identity for itself to display to the audience. This movie is a total jumble and lacks enough structure to even attempt to become a decent movie. What saves this movie from being a total disaster are the lead actors which had been on a roll up to this point. For those expecting a deliciously dark follow-up to Horrible Bosses from that same director instead will walk away quite disenchanted and disappointed.
In a nutshell, stressed father and husband Sandy Patterson has his identity stolen resulting in him building up debt that's being accumulated by another person. Desperately in order to save his job and get his life back, he travels down to Florida to find the thief and convince her to return back to Colorado to get things straightened out. This plot is rather ridiculous, which is why it required a screwball or dark comedic taint to remove the absurdity of it all. Unfortunately, despite the trailers and television spots this barely is a dark comedy, and barely works as a comedy to be exact.
Identity Thief is sometimes funny, but never funny enough. It is sometimes dark and twisted, but never truly dark and twisted enough. It's even sometimes emotional and sentimental (very inconsistently I might add), but even that ship sails too soon far too often. Lastly it is sometimes interesting and suspenseful, but, well, you get the point. The intriguing and potentially hilarious premise of a disgruntled victim meeting his money-sucking predator was started by a Floridian teacher, but gets ruined by a bloated and underdeveloped script by Craig Mazin----whom doesn't really have a good repertoire. The mismatched directing of Seth Gordon didn't help either.
It is ultimately the cast that keeps it afloat, even when the script bogs them down. Jason Bateman and Melissa McCarthy work well together and did a great job despite the circumstances, particularly McCarthy. Then check out the rest of this underused staff: Eric Stonestreet, Robert Patrick, Amanda Peet, Genesis Rodriguez, Morris Chestnut, and John Cho. Plenty of good actors and each with the ability to breathe life into the project, but unfortunately just didn't have enough screen time to make an impact.
Bottom Line: Resembling a weak, watered-down useless version of Planes, Trains, and Automobiles instead of the likes of Horrible Bosses and the best of Danny DeVito, Identity Thief struggles to find the right focus and right footing and winds up becoming a movie that isn't funny enough, isn't dramatic enough, isn't wild enough, isn't likable enough, and generally isn't good enough to warrant a second viewing---or a first one. It's one thing to disappoint, but it's a totally different matter when you disappoint underneath so much potential and so much talent at the helm.