Movie # 11 - Identity Thief

The premise is a good one: Family man Sandy (played by Jason Bateman) is on a roll after being asked to become vice-president at a new firm started by a former colleague, at the same time as his wife (Amanda Peet) is pregnant with their third child.  But it all unravels pretty quickly after a random phone call from a "security" firm shares his data with professional fraudster Diana (played by Melissa McCarthy) who takes full advantage of Sandy's "girl's name" by racking up heaps of credit card debt and a few petty misdemeanours.  To save his new job and family, Sandy decides to head to Florida to convince the fake Sandy to come to Denver to admit it was her.  Thus begins what should be a hilarious mismatched buddy road trip but ends up being just amiable fun.

Seth Gordon would have to be one of the patchiest directors working now.  His good stuff includes gamer doco The King of Kong and the consistently funny Horrible Bosses, but he also did the very so-so Four Holidays and now this patchy movie.   I think the main problem is that it's pretending to be a raucous comedy but in reality it's a gently heart-warming cautionary tale.   The tone is a bit all of the place.  But the message is a good one - Don't be an identity fraudster kids, or nobody will like you and your life will be shallow, sad and dangerous.  Money doesn't buy happiness!

I'm glad this was a free movie, because the laugh to dollar ratio was average based on a normal ticket price.  For a free ticket though, the laugh to dollar ratio was pretty high.  I think it would really help if you are a Jason Bateman fan, as I am.  Watching him react to Melissa McCarthy (the funny friend from Bridesmaids and the TV show Mike and Molly) is what really brought the laughs for me.  If you're not a fan, you might be a bit underwhelmed by this movie.  McCarthy is so game with her comedy but at times you just feel like either she or the screenwriter's are just trying a bit too hard.  She does make the character a little bit sympathetic by the end though, so kudos for that cause there's nothing more annoying than an unrepentant identity fraudster.

There are some pretty funny cameos from Robert Patrick (yep the T1000 himself) as a bounty hunter on the trail of Diana, Eric Stonestreet (Cam from TV's Modern Family, not playing gay here) and John Favreau as Sandy's nasty former boss.  The rest of the cast are fairly blah.  A few spectacular car based scenes add a bit of action and violence to really confuse the tone a bit further.  Despite the confusion though, I still enjoyed myself and would suggest you see this on DVD.