Anyone who has been the victim of identity theft knows that the situation rarely results in a cross-country road trip with the thief. But comedies thrive off the ridiculous evolution of real-world circumstances, don’t they? Such circumstances take form in the new movie creatively titled “Identity Thief,” and car chases, shootouts and slapstick mayhem galore ensue. It’s too bad that so much of “Identity Thief” is so over-the-top that the humor is reduced to cartoonish frameworks and empty, annoyingly trite characters.
Weak writing plagues film from the start
In “Identity Thief,” Jason Bateman plays the classic exasperated everyman as Sandy Patterson. Sandy’s unfortunately effeminate name makes him the latest target of con-woman Diana, played by the outrageously versatile Melissa McCarthy. This duo seems to promise the same buddy comedic fervor as the likes of “Planes, Trains & Automobiles” or “Tommy Boy,” and a fresh twist with a man and a woman who have no potential of romantic involvement. However, the dynamic between Bateman and McCarthy seems strained by the weak plot and even weaker writing.
Diana is a notorious con artist who has stolen Sandy’s name and credit card info in order to make a series of elaborate purchases. Why someone who steals a card would draw such attention to themselves is beyond me. Perhaps it’s because Diana displays the tell-tale signs of mental instability and a pathological lack of ethical sense. Diana’s role is quite despicable at its foundation, but made lovable by McCarthy’s brightness. Sandy is arrested in Denver after missing a court date in Florida for maxing his credit and discovers Diana’s deceit through photo ID. In a desperate attempt to save his job and take back his life, he goes bounty hunting toward Florida, hoping to intercept Diana and force her to confess fraud to the authorities.
Characters devolve into cartoons
“Identity Thief” could have used Bateman’s clean-cut charisma alongside McCarthy’s ability to deliver banter with a keen awareness for tempo. Yet this movie is a classic example of two vastly talented leads suffering to make lemonade out of the weak, predictable screenplay before them. Another aspect of the film that lost me was its incessant back-and-forth between cartoonish absurdity and sobering seriousness. I won’t spoil it for anyone interested enough to watch “Identity Thief,” but Diana’s background is explored and the reasons for her perpetual dishonesty and poor self-image are recounted by her personally in a moment of legitimate emotional pain. This scene would have hit me harder if I was not already desensitized by the fact that I’d seen Diana get hit head-on by a car and stand up with little more than a limp. You don’t feel despondent for Wile E. Coyote when he’s crushed by an anvil, and Diana is quickly lumped into that same character category.
An important aspect of comedies these days is originality. So many ways to make real life funny have already been explored. It takes more than two very funny actors to make a movie succeed, and even with talented “Horrible Bosses” director Seth Gordon at the helm, the uninspired subject matter driving Sandy and Diana’s road trip never quite hits the organic mark that all comedies aspire to. Chaos is aplenty for Sandy and Diana, particularly involving a pair of pursuing assassins (Genesis Rodriguez and T.I.), but it isn’t the kind of crisp and ironic havoc that you would expect from a buddy comedy — it is either too raw or simply too unbelievable. “Identity Thief” is aimless and too off-the-mark to enjoy as a whole, and ironically it seems to have suffered from its own form of identity crisis.
