Movie Thief
When Sandy Patterson (Jason Bateman) receives a phone call from someone claiming to be from his credit card company offering free protection he foolishly hands over his details unaware that on the other end of the phone is Diana (Melissa McCarthy) a fraudster who steals people's identity. When it becomes apparent to Sandy that his identity has been stolen as his finances are in tatters and his career on the line he heads to Florida to find the woman behind the fraud and bring her back to face charges. But he didn't think things through and ends up on an eventful road trip across country with some heavies and a bounty hunter on their trail looking for Diana.
Never judge a book by its cover and never judge a movie by what the advertising makes it out to be. As such if you ever read that "Identify Thief" is a comedy about a man trying to get the person who stole his identity arrested to clean up the mess of his life don't believe it. Oh that maybe the initial set up and it has some fun with it with Melissa McCarthy turning on some bubbly charm as the fraudster with a wicked jab to people's throats but in the end "Identity Thief" isn't about stolen identity.
Nope "Identity Thief" is just another road trip movie with two chalk n cheese movie getting in to various scrapes but ending up bonding by the time it is over. And so whilst we have some comedy with Diana usually trying to get on Sandy's nerves to the repetitive use of the "Sandy, isn't that a girl's name" gag it all ends up pretty typical. That isn't to say it isn't entertaining as both Jason Bateman & Melissa McCarthy manage to be amusing and likeable but in the end it never comes close to hitting the same sweet spot as "Planes, Trains & Automobiles".
What this all boils down to is that whilst "Identify Thief" is an entertaining movie it is only a typical chalk n cheese road trip movie which doesn't add anything new to the well used idea.
