Identity Thief

Out of all the genres that truly needs to reinvent itself is the comedy. Either they are top notch, well written vehicles, or they are poorly written, adequately acted, and use pratfalls to compensate for inability to write. Well, I have to say that "Identity Thief" falls into the latter description.

Florida resident Diana (Melissa McCarthy) has a luxurious lifestyle as the queen of retail, buying whatever strikes her fancy-- and it's all free, thanks to Sandy Bigelow Patterson (Jason Bateman), a guy from Denver whose identity she stole. With just one week to track down Diana before his world implodes, the real Sandy heads south to confront the unapologetic con artist and bring her back to Denver so that he can clear his name and restore his shattered life and credit rating.
Although as Sandy gets to Florida, there are others who are after Diana as well that she has conned. Mob henchmen, Marisol and Julian (Genesis Rodriguez and Tip T.I. Harris) are looking for her, because of bad fake credit cards she sold them, and Skiptracer (Robert Patrick), a fraud 'bounty hunter' is on her tail also. With all this going on, it makes Sandy's job of getting her back to Denver that much more problematic.

Others to round out the cast are Jon Favreau as Harold Cornish, Sandy's boss, Amanda Peet as Trish Patterson, Sandy's wife, Morris Chestnut as Detective Reilly, John Cho as Daniel Casey, Sandy's co-worker/subsequent boss, Eric Stonestreet as Big Chuck, and Ryan Gaul as Bartender.a

This was adequately directed by Seth Gordon ("The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters"  (Documentary) '07, "Four Christmases" '08, "Freakonomics" (Documentary) '10, "Horrible Bosses" '11). Considering this guy's resume, this particular fare wasn't tough for him to handle. The writing, however, was questionable at best. It was written by Craig Mazin ("RocketMan" '97, "Senseless" '98, "Scary Movie 3" '03, "Scary Movie 4" '06, "Superhero Movie" '08, "The Hangover Part II" '11), and with the exceptions of a few momentary laughs, this was not funny. It was frustrating, as it's supposed to be, but it wasn't funny. The frustration of it would have been more palatable if the writing was funny, but all it became was a headache. I really like both actors, Bateman and McCarthy, but they, themselves, couldn't save this. It was based on a story by Jerry Eeten and Mazin, and the premise had promise, but the execution just fell flat on its face.

If you're into inane and poor writing with toilet humor and tons of pratfalls, you'll just revel here, however if you're into funny, well written dialogue, my advice to you is to keep on looking down the road.

Out of 4 Stars: 1.5                         Rated: R                               111mins.