Identity Thief

It occurs to me that Jason can only play two characters; Jason Bateman and Michael Bluth. While it may seem that they are two different characters, they aren't that far removed. In this movie, he is definitely playing Jason Bateman.

The plot of this movie is simple enough. Sandy Patterson (Jason Bateman) has his identity stolen by an overweight Florida resident (Melissa McCarthy). Sandy has just become a senior VP at a new financial firm when he discovers the bad news. The police inform him that they can do nothing about it, as it is outside their jurisdiction. Sandy hatches a plan in which he will coerce the other Sandy to confess her crime to his boss Daniel (John Cho). So off he goes to Florida, only to discover that he must drive back to Denver with his detainee.

So what seems like a simple road trip movie is slightly complicated by the fact that the other Sandy (real name Diana) is being followed by both a bounty hunter and two drug dealers controlled by a mysterious prisoner (Jonathan Banks). I found that these characters added an extra layer to the film that was not really needed, but didn't detract from the main storyline too much.

It seems that Seth Gordon has just taken Bateman's character from his last film Horrible Bosses and just put him in a new situation. The jokes in the film aren't hysterically funny, but they aren't unfunny either.

Jason Bateman's character Sandy is a kind of hapless sort who falls into the situation that causes him all this grief very easily. His role here is very much as a straight man to McCarthy, with lots of jokes at his expense about his feminine name. I feel as though Melissa McCarthy is quite up to the standard that she has been in the past. I found the funniest jokes from her were the ones where she tries to sing.

There were a few good cameos from Jon Favreau, Eric Stonestreet and Jonathan Banks (of Breaking Bad fame, fans of that character will recognise him instantly), but all these characters stories never got resolved and it would have been good just to have a round up of them in the closing credits.

Verdict: It's a bit of gamble seeing this movie. You could find McCarthy's antics hilarious or grating. It works well as a road trip movie, but Todd Philips has done better.