McCarthy plays a brassy Florida hustler who may or may not be named Diana and who uses a lame, low-tech ruse to borrow Sandy’s identity, run up massive debts on his accounts, get arrested under his name and so forth. I refuse to offer anything like a normal plot synopsis, because that might imply to the gullible that this movie makes any damn sense, or that there’s some reason to care about what happens in what order. Trying to explain to Sandy why the brass at his financial firm are receiving six- or seven-figure bonuses while the regular schmoes get diddly-squat, his jerkass boss tells him, “I’ll get you a copy of ‘The Fountainhead.’ Then you’ll see why this is good for everybody.” And once in a while, McCarthy’s nasty-girl shtick is amusing, as when she finally meets Sandy’s wife (Amanda Peet, criminally underutilized here) and assures her, in overly graphic woman-to-woman detail, that nothing happened between her and Sandy on their long and intimate road trip across the country, with rednecks and black people in hot pursuit. I remember laughing at an Ayn Rand joke early on, which suggested that Craig Mazin’s screenplay once contained some vague political ambitions. Here I am, two hours closer to the moment of my death, and I spent those hours wriggling like a toddler while McCarthy mimed oral sex on corpulent cowboys and Bateman desperately mugged his way through a role as Sandy Patterson, a supposedly average corporate drone who is endlessly mocked for having a “girl’s name.” I see that aimless gag as unhappily symbolic no one in this movie has a wide enough frame of reference to have met a guy named Sandy before, and the movie itself displays exactly the same kind of ignorance and incuriosity, not to mention free-floating paranoia. I almost never walk out of movie screenings that I’ve actually bestirred myself to attend, but only some perverse and self-punishing sense of honor kept me in my seat for this one. They need to seriously consider firing themselves, or at least placing themselves on administrative leave (also known, in this business, as television). We’re always supposed to say that actors are not responsible for their most terrible films, but it isn’t quite enough for Bateman and McCarthy to fire their agents, or return unopened next year’s holiday cards from whatever Universal Pictures executive actually watched this film and then decided to release it. If the Jason Bateman-Melissa McCarthy comedy “Identity Thief” isn’t the worst Hollywood comedy ever made, that’s only because it lacks the spark of conviction and genius – the thoroughly misguided belief in itself – that distinguishes something like Adam Sandler’s “Grown Ups.” But considering that it starts out with two distinctive and likable stars and a reasonably promising premise, “Identity Thief” reaches impressive heights of laziness and idiocy. Interested in knowing what the movie's about? Here's the plot: "When a mild-mannered businessman learns his identity has been stolen, he hits the road in an attempt to foil the thief - a trip that puts him in the path of a deceptively harmless-looking woman." 'Identity Thief' is currently available to rent, purchase, or stream via subscription on Apple iTunes, DIRECTV, Microsoft Store, Max Go, Redbox, Google Play Movies, Amazon Video, AMC on Demand, Vudu, Spectrum On Demand, HBO Now, and YouTube. ![]() ![]() Released February 9th, 2013, 'Identity Thief' stars Jason Bateman, Melissa McCarthy, Amanda Peet, Génesis Rodríguez The R movie has a runtime of about 1 hr 51 min, and received a user score of 58 (out of 100) on TMDb, which compiled reviews from 2,955 respected users. Now, before we get into all the details of how you can watch 'Identity Thief' right now, here are some specifics about the Universal Pictures, Stuber Productions, Aggregate Films, DumbDumb comedy flick. Below, you'll find a number of top-tier streaming and cable services - including rental, purchase, and subscription choices - along with the availability of 'Identity Thief' on each platform when they are available. Yearning to watch ' Identity Thief' on your TV or mobile device at home? Finding a streaming service to buy, rent, download, or watch the Seth Gordon-directed movie via subscription can be a huge pain, so we here at Moviefone want to do the heavy lifting.
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