Movie Review: Identity Thief
Having been a victim of a minor scale identity theft myself, I could totally relate with the frustrations and sense of violation Sandy (Jason Bateman) has to endure. Though I did not have to put up with anything more than filling out a police report and notifying my FDIC insured bank, it was still inconvenient and very frustrating.
Identity thief was a reminder of how easy it can happen to anyone. It is as simple as swiping your credit card or, in the case of the film, being conned over the phone into providing personal information.
Identity Thief follows Sandy, an accountant who works very hard, does everything by the book and strives to be the best he can be. Sandy, however, has quite the distaste for his unfair employer, as well as the rest of his co-workers. As they are all conspiring to quit and take all of the clientele of the unfair employer with them, Sandy is asked to be a VP and gladly accepts the offer.
As things are looking up for Sandy, he gets a phone call about his appointment to have his hair done in Florida. Thinking it is the wrong number he goes about his business, until he receives a call about an overdrafted credit card from the same area. As he is putting two and two together he is pulled over by Denver Police and taken in for questioning on a warrant issued for him in Florida.
Pleading his innocence with the inept officers, he finally convinces them to at least pull up his mug shot to find a not so pretty mug shot of Sandy. Seeing that it is clearly not him that was causing the ruckus in Florida, the police inform him how hard and long it will take to get this person over state lines.
The plot thickens when Sandy shows up to his new job only to have his unsympathetic boss played by John Cho questioning him about the credit card delinquencies and the arrest warrants. After explaining to his boss that his identity was stolen, Sandy manages to get a week leave to prove his innocence. After arriving in Florida, Sandy heads to his “hair appointment” to try to find his thief.
Showing up right on time the thief played by Melissa McCarthy is seemingly oblivious to her victim’s whereabouts and she goes about her business as usual. Sandy follows his thief and she soon catches on that someone is following her and slams on her breaks causing a minor collision.
As they are exchanging info Sandy tells her she has been caught and she then punches him in the neck and steals his car. He searches through her belonging to find an address and then takes a taxi to her house to find her. Soon after he arrives they hear a knock at the door and it is two hit men tasked with nabbing the thief for a bad stolen credit card deal. The two are then forced on a road trip together, as they can’t take a flight back to Denver due to them having the same identity. What ensues is a Planes, Trains and Automobiles cross-country trip with everything seemingly going wrong.
Overall thoughts:
I enjoyed this movie. It was by no means a great film, but it was satisfying and actually had some pretty good acting moments for Melissa McCarthy. If anyone else would have been in her role I don’t think the film would have been good at all. She managed to save it and actually turn the story around toward the end of the film.
It did have a few plot holes and was a bit confusing at times, but somehow managed to keep from drowning. Identity Thief is vulgar and has a lot of fat jokes, which kind of got annoying, but still managed to be funny and pull off not being a terrible movie.
Though I can’t say it is one of my new favorites, it’s at least worth the dollar from Redbox. Check it out.
I give it 6 out of 10