IDENTITY THIEF CAST MOVIE
In saying that, as I stated before, aside from all of the funny scenes that the trailers had to offer, and one laugh out loud sex scene (that of which occurs in the unevenly entertaining middle portion of this film) "Identity Thief" is bookended and sporadically injected with more unfunny and contrived moments, which consistently work to drag this movie back down into the still waters of mediocrity time and time again. Hilarious! Now, when Bateman and McCarthy find themselves in a road trip situation (about 30 minutes in) it is only then that Gordon seems to let these two very funny comedic actors run wild and "Identity Thief" begins to see comedic moments that actually work.
IDENTITY THIEF CAST TRIAL
After the police outright refuse to help him, Sandy sets out on a quest of sorts to Florida in order to bring McCarthy's character back to Colorado himself (basically doing the police's job for them) so that she may stand trial for her crimes.
The Plot: This movie lays out the improbable (even for a comedy) set-up of a man in Colorado named Sandy Patterson (funny name to give a man, huh? Well, I guess it's funny the first few times this joke is told) played by the very much underrated Jason Bateman, who gets his identity stolen by a woman in Florida, played by Melissa McCarthy. She uses her surface appearance of harmlessness and her impressive improvisational talents (not so different from McCarthy’s own) as weapons.In one of those movies where the funniest moments are in the trailers, "Identity Thief" is director Seth Gordon's hit and miss follow up to the hilarious "Horrible Bosses", and is also nothing more than a less consistently funny version of "Due Date". Identity Thief also showcases McCarthy’s virtuosity as a physical comedian.Īnimated by McCarthy’s theatrically-manic, violent, physical comedy, Diana is relentlessly energetic and unscrupulous beneath her cartoonishly awful attire. She enjoys her feminine masquerades and uses them to counter social and economic disempowerment. Instead, she is transformed by McCarthy into something else: a female impersonator who glories in excesses of style and appetite. Her visual excesses are set in contrast to the modest appeal of hard-working, underpaid family man Sandy.īut Diana never quite subsides into being just a tacky, pathetic fashion victim addicted to shopping.
IDENTITY THIEF CAST PLUS
The production’s costume designer, Carol Ramsey, recalls that Diana’s wardrobe of candy bright floral and gingham was modelled on the real-life horrors of plus size fashion.Ĭombined with similarly garish makeup, Diana is styled as the embodiment of white trash, impulse-driven consumerism. She creates an outrageous female antihero whose larger-than-life masquerade of femininity is a survival strategy.ĭiana’s visual excess is in sharp contrast to the man whose identity she steals. The scriptwriters appeared to struggle with McCarthy’s character, falling back on stereotypes in depicting Diana as an utterly isolated loser.īut we see McCarthy taking control of the joke through a high camp performance. Producer and co-star Jason Bateman who plays Sandy Patterson, the man whose identity Diana steals, asked for the second role to be rewritten with McCarthy in mind.
Identity Thief was originally written for two male co-stars. With its origins in the gay male subculture of drag performance, camp is strongly identified with ironic gender play – a key element of McCarthy’s comedy. Sexually voracious and atrociously attired in Kangol Ventair caps, orthopedic sandals and pearls, Megan was the first of many McCarthy creations that speaks to her sympathy for - and delight in - the outrageously-dressed, tastelessly-coiffed and badly-behaved.Įntirely the product of McCarthy’s improvisational comedy, Megan incarnates what Susan Sontag in Notes on Camp (1964) referred to as a “tender feeling” which “relishes, rather than judges” what others might deride as bad taste. Her break out big-screen role was Megan, the idiosyncratic sister of the groom in Bridesmaids (2011). When Identity Thief was released, McCarthy was best known for crafting adorable, quirkily likeable characters for the small screen in Gilmore Girls (2000-07) and Mike & Molly (2010-16).
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