From the director of Horrible Bosses, we get yet another outing where crime and comedy collide. This time, instead of murder, we’re dealing with identity theft.
While the crime itself is no laughing matter, this film looks to poke fun at the disconnect between what we imagine criminals to look like and reality.
Jason Bateman stars as Sandy Patterson, an accountant who’s identity is stolen by a female criminal played by Melissa McCarthy, who proceeds to run up a debt of over $12,000 in addition to committing various crimes.
Since the local police in Patterson’s home state of Colorado doesn’t have jurisdiction where the crimes are being committed, Patterson travels down to Florida to bring the thief to justice, all while running afoul of a bounty hunter (Robert Patrick) and enforcers from a drug cartel (T.I. and Genesis Rodriguez).
While the story is okay, there are scenes where the film drags, with some jokes being too drawn out. It also is unable to avoid the trope where the film takes a turn for the dramatic towards the end, but it’s not as bad as other comedies in the past.
There were also times where the comedy left a few things to be desired.
The film also follows the road trip “enemies become friends” formula, hitting a lot of the same formulaic beats, with some aspects of the formula not making sense in the full scope of the story, particularly when it comes to the actions of our main character.
While there’s some pretty good humor strewn throughout the film, there are times where some jokes felt a little unnecessary.
From a technical standpoint, the film is put together pretty well, with decent visuals and editing. Writing wise, the dialogue is okay, but not all that memorable, and the pacing, although formulaic at least stayed fairly progressive and kept the story moving.
Overall, the film was mildly enjoyable. While there were some funny moments, there wasn’t anything that elicited that much laughter out of me personally.
In the end, it felt like they attempted to replicate the style of Horrible Bosses, but toned it down considerably given that there’s only so much you can do with a film about identity theft. It’s a decent film, but not one worth seeing at a full price theater. On my personal scale, I give Identity Thief a 3.5/5.
