Anyone who has ever been the victim of Identity Fraud knows how painful the experience can be.  Lives are disrupted, credit ruined, and in some extreme cases, relationships fall apart.  I’ve even heard of people losing their jobs because of someone else stealing their cards and using their name.  So if Hollywood is going to make a comedy on a subject that many may find hard to laugh at it needs to have, at the very least, three things going for it; intelligence, some insight into the problem, and if it chooses to be a comedy, it needs to be really funny.  The new Seth Gordon directed film, Identity Thief, fails on all fronts.  No kidding, this is truly painful.

Plus sized comedienne, Melissa McCarthy is Diana, a thief with a serious problem.  She steals identities and spends the credit of other people’s accounts like there’s no tomorrow.  At a bar she buys drinks for everyone, accumulating a bill that runs in the thousands.  When she’s too drunk to even stand, the bartender tells her to leave.  “What about all my friends?” she asks.  “People like you don’t have friends,” the bartender returns, indicating that the only reason anyone even spoke to her in the first place was because she was the one buying.  The first thing that might occur to you is not that the bartender is right – he is; now if only the rest of the film explored that kind of truth – it’s the fact that for a thief who is stealing thousands, instead of laying low, she brings so much public attention to herself.  It doesn’t make sense, even in a comedy.

Jason Bateman is Sandy Patterson, a nice, family guy with a promising future who unfortunately becomes Diana’s next victim.  It’s his credit that’s buying all the drinks for Diana’s ‘friends.’  It’s also his credit that’s buying all the microwaves, TVs, juice-makers and anything else that Diana can compulsively stockpile in her large, Florida home.  When the spending gets out of line and laws start to be broken, what happens?  Even though in the real world it would be clear to the police that Bateman is the innocent victim of identity fraud on a mammoth scale – he’s in Colorado, she’s in Florida - they walk in to his place of business and arrest him in front of everyone without listening to his protestations. 

The plot becomes more preposterous when Bateman’s character decides to go to Florida himself and find the woman causing his life so much pain and bring her back to Colorado to prove his innocence.  Once he gets her description and knows who he’s after, he gets in his car and drives south.  “She’s hobbit height,” Bateman tells his wife.  “I’m going after Bilbo.” It’s the one line that raised a smile.

The film doesn’t appear to really care about its subject – identity theft is merely the concept – it’s going for broad laughs, slapstick and comedy from the school of frustration.  Because it’s that kind of film, you fear the inevitable moment when Bateman is going to eventually like McCarthy’s Diana.  In truth, the woman is horrid, selfish, and contemptible, and the damage she causes is beyond reprehensible, yet the film appears to be saying that if we looked a little beyond her contemptible behavior, there’s something worth appreciating.  “She’s not a bad person,” Bateman’s character actually says at one point.  Seriously?

Ever since Bridesmaids, Melissa McCarthy’s star has been on the rise.  The thing is, in the Kristen Wiig comedy McCarthy’s character was a support, and she was likeable.  In Identity Thief she’s the lead and no matter how much you may want to like her character, you can’t; Diana is despicable.  Occasionally you catch a glimpse of something in McCarthy’s face indicating a performer who might be interesting in a comedy with some depth and real wit, but this is not it.  The filmmakers are having her coast on the goodwill developed from Bridesmaids and her TV sitcom, but that’s just lazy.  Identity Thief is really not good enough.

MPAA Rating:  R    Length:  111 minutes     Overall Rating: 3 (out of 10)