Identity Theif: Soul Sucking for All

 About 20 minutes into Seth Gordon's new film, my lovely lady quietly whispered "Is there a word for a comedy that doesn't have any comedy in it? Does that make it a drama?" I replied that there's such a thing as "dramadies"—y'know, dramatic comedies—but for that word to apply to Identity Thief, it would have to mean that the film would have to contain drama, or comedy. It doesn't. Identity Thief is one of the single worst movies I've had the displeasure of watching recently, and this is coming from someone who managed to find some good things to say about Movie 43. At least that flick, while also horrible, had the good graces to make us occasionally laugh.

The strangest thing about Thief is how little it actually tries to be funny. After reading the horrible reviews I assumed the film wouldn't reach the side-splitting Hangover-level of comedic success; but I love Jason Bateman, and (most) people loved Melissa McCarthy in Bridesmaids, and the director, Gordon, did Horrible Bosses last year (which was possibly my favorite comedy of 2011) so there is no way Identity Thief could be as bad as rumored. But Identity Thief honestly just doesn’t try to be that funny. It wants, apparently, to be the next Planes, Trains, and Automobiles—a heart-warming film where two misfits wind up becoming friends, with a few laughs along the way. But Identity Thief has about as much in common with that flick as Taxi Driver does to Sesame Street.

God, is this movie awful. Endless, endless minutes would pass by without any laughter, or any interest. I wish I counted how many times me and my lady would look at each other with pure confusion—just what were they THINKING? The screenplay goes nowhere, the direction is flat and clueless, the characters are almost all reprehensible, and even basic transitions between scenes are amateurish (just watch the scene where Bateman is bitten by a snake, then suddenly we fade to morning, in a different location, and he has two small bite marks, and…that's it).

Why does Hollywood seem to believe that we want our comedies to have long stretches of people crying? Why do they think we want realistic car chases and gangsters shooting at each other in a silly, cartoonish flick? Why do they think we'll automatically laugh any time a fat person does something quirky?

That last comment may sound mean. I'm not ripping on Melissa McCarthy's weight—I'm ripping on the movie making so much fun of her weight. That's pretty much her defining characteristic—she's rude, she's violent, and she's fat. That's the extent of the comedy the screenplay gives us, with regards to her character. Now, Zack Galifankis was also those things in the first Hangover, but he also had an endearing, innocent quality to him—McCarthy, in this film, is like her overrated character in Bridsemaids on pathological steroids. And Jason Bateman, bless his heart, is just clearly, incredibly bored. His final smile in the film looks more forced than a kid's school picture.

Identity Thief follows Bateman as he discovers a woman in Florida stole his identity, and then he (somehow) convinces the police that he'll go get her and bring her back himself, and all will be cleared. Uh huh. The fact that on the way, he also commits hit and runs, gang violence, physical assault, and eventually large-scale forgery and theft, yet STILL believes that the only crime committed was her stealing his identity, shows just how friggin' dumb this screenplay is. 10 year olds have more sense.

So it becomes a road movie, as Bateman and McCarthy drive up to Denver (because an airport wouldn't accept two licenses of the same weird name, even though he had a handful of her other identities in an earlier….ahhh, forget it). Gangsters chase them, and Robert Patrick chases them, and and and….but why do you care? Why would anyone care? Comedies aren't usually known for having deep, complex plots—we just want characters we are interested in, doing and saying things that make us laugh.

Identity Thief has one laugh. Literally—that's all. I laughed out loud once, when McCarthy brings back an overweight cowboy to have sex with her while Bateman watches. He had a couple funny lines. So there was one laugh, yes. But that's it. Literally, for most of the rest of the film, they weren't even trying—the opening 30 minutes are so filled with expository dialogue and exchanges of "This is happening, this is why, this is where I must go, this is what I must do," that the entire audience rapidly fell into a bored stupor. And when the film began even breaking the most common laws of intelligence, physics, and reality….well, it was all I could do to not walk out. And I've never walked out of a film before; for God sake's, I once sat through all of House Bunny. But I really almost walked out of Identity Thief.

Anyways. The bland, stale, pathetic attempts at humor bothered me, and the horrible screenplay was a giant waste of time. But it was the pure apathy for the audience that quickly got to me. Every single person involved in this film simply didn't care—they wanted your money, and they got it. A simple paycheck for all involved, and life moves on. Movie 43 got a lot of flak a few weekends ago, but hey, they at least TRIED. True, their audacious attempt was simply to make the worst movie of all time. But there was real passion there. People cared about their testicle jokes. And there were even a few laughs.

There is no passion here, no jokes, no laughs. Identity Thief is a waste of time, money, and talent. It exists for no valuable reason. Don't make the mistake of "it's harmless, why not watch it?" Films like this can suck out your soul. Hell, they can even steal your identity.