FILM REVIEW OF ''IDENTITY THIEF" (2013)

 

Jason Bateman contended with social media as a concerned father in the dramatic movie “Disconnect” where he discovered that his misfit son tried to commit suicide as a result of pictures that his teenaged son had posted on the Internet.  Now, Bateman plays another father in “Horrible Bosses” director Seth Gordon’s improbably but entertaining fish-out-of-water comedy “Identity Thief” with Melissa McCarthy.  Bateman is cast as father who loses his identity to a clever con artist over the telephone.  McCarthy plays the eponymous character with gusto.  “Scary Movie 3” scenarist Craig Mazin and Gordon have a field day pitting straight-laced Bateman against the comical McCarthy and humiliating him at every turn.  Eventually, these two emerge as an odd couple.  The ways they change during the course of the movie make “Identity Thief” (*** OUT OF ****) an engaging laffer.  You’ve got to love comedy, tolerate profanity, and resign yourself to sexually offensive situations to be able to laugh off what transpires.  While McCarthy hams it up as the cunning Diana, Bateman delivers a flawless, deadpan performance as a well-meaning milquetoast.  Morris Chestnut, Jon Favreau, John Cho, Robert Patrick, Eric Stonestreet, and Jonathan Banks contribute strong supporting performances.
 

This madcap comedy of errors finds our clueless, chumpster hero leaving his pregnant wife (Amanda Peet of "Sax and Violins") and two daughters in comfortable Denver, Colorado, to cruise south to Winter Park, Florida, where he hopes to persuade a gluttonous identity thief, Diana (Melissa McCarthy), to accompany him back to the City of the Plains.  Early in "Identity Thief," Sandy Bigelow Patterson (Jason Bateman of “Smokin' Aces") answers the phone at work and makes the fatal mistake of divulging his full name, birthday, and social security number to the eponymous villainess who is posing as a computer security associate.  She embarks on a spending rampage and gets so plastered at a bar that the police take her to jail on a DUI. Naturally, she misses her court date.  Not surprisingly, the Winter Park police contact the Denver Police and they pull Sandy over and take him into custody.  Eventually, Sandy convinces Detective Reilly of the Denver Police that he is not the same person as the scam artist in Winter Park.  Reilly points that it may take between six months and a year for him to clear up his identity thief crisis.  Now, Sandy is in trouble with his boss, Daniel Casey (John Cho of "Star Trek") because of his huge credit card debt.  No sooner does our upright family guy protagonist track down his identity thief than he winds up helping her flee from two, gun-toting, Hispanic narcotics dealers.  Diana conspired with Marisol (Genesis Rodriguez of "Man on a Ledge") and Julian (Clifford Joseph Harris Jr. of “The Hangover”) to forge credit cards for them and their crime boss.  During their escape, Patterson claps handcuffs on her a la “The 39 Steps,” but Diana extracts herself without difficulty from the cuffs.  These two wind up helping each other while the villains head off in hot pursuit.  

Gordon and Mazin raise the ante with various plot complications during the road trip.  A notorious, big-time mobster behind bars, Paul (Jonathan Banks of “Beverly Hills Cop”) who is linked to Diana dispatches a hell-bent-for-leather hit man, Skiptracer (Robert Patrick of “Terminator 2”), to eliminate Diana.  After Skiptracer abducts Diana, Sandy manages to run them off the road and Skiptracer’s van overturns during the collision.  Moments after Sandy gets Diana out of the van, a semi-truck demolishes Sandy’s car so they appropriate Skiptracer’s van.  The van overheats on them, and Sandy and Diana find themselves on foot.  They wind up lost in the woods and camp out until first light.  While Sandy tries to sleep, a snake slithers up one pants-leg.  The snake scene in the woods will keep you laughing, even if the snake is CGI.  Watching Diana trying to drive the serpent off with a flame stick is amusing, too.  However, things turn truly zany when the snake bites Sandy on the neck! Diana’s favorite move is to smash her adversary’s throat with her fist.

The chief problem with “Identity Thief” is its messy morality. Our protagonist tells his daughter at the outset of the action that bad behavior is punished, but he engages in such antics.  Meanwhile, as much as our heroine tries to change her stripes, Diana never entirely renounces her amoral ways.  At least one plot line involving Jonathan Banks’ incarnated criminal is never taken advantage of and the fates of three villains sent to kill McCarthy are left unraveled. McCarthy’s riotous shenanigans and Bateman’s straight-arrow businessman and the charisma that they generate salvage this otherwise formulaic saga.

 

FILM REVIEW OF "THE SWITCH" (2010)

Although the Jennifer Aniston & Jason Bateman romantic comedy "The Switch" (**** OUT OF ****) didn't beat the earlier Jennifer Lopez sperm bank comedy "The Back Up Plan" to the big-screen, co-directors Josh Gordon and Will Speck have produced a much more satisfying yarn about a single, fortysomething female's desire for artificial insemination. "The Back-Up Plan" relied on the comic predicament Lopez found herself in after she ran into Mr. Right the same day that her doctor inseminated her. The complications that arose between the Lopez character and her new boyfriend over her test tube pregnancy provided the grist of the plot. Naturally, the boyfriend found himself in an identity crisis because her pregnancy reversed the typical chronology of a couple and he got cold feet. Predictably, Lopez and her boyfriend dealt with this complication in the usual fashion of the guy meets gal, guy loses gal, and guy wins back gal formula. In the long run, everything turned out perfectly for them.

Ostensibly based on Pulitzer-prize winning novelist Jeffrey Eugenides' 1996 short story "The Baster," "The Switch" tweaks "The Back-Up Plan" premise. Aniston and Bateman play long-time best friends when our heroine hears her biological alarm clock ringing and opts for artificial insemination since she hasn't found Mr. Right. She solicits help from best friend Bateman to find the most suitable sperm donor. Predictably jealous, the Bateman character takes matters into his own hands and complications galore occur. Unlike "The Back-Up Plan," "The Switch" qualifies as a far funnier romantic comedy with richer situations, more interesting characters, and splendid performances. Aniston and Bateman forge chemistry together as a friendly couple who don't realize they are right for each other. Patrick Wilson, Jeff Goldblum, and Juliette Lewis provide solid support. The best acting in "The Switch," however, comes from the most crucial character in Allen Loeb's screenplay. Newcomer Thomas Robinson delivers a surprising performance as Aniston's on-screen preschooler. Not only is Robinson an adorable child , but he is also an accomplished thespian whose only previous credit was an episode of the canceled NBC-TV sci-fi series "Heroes."

Aristotle wrote in "Poetics" that character is the essential ingredient that drives the best comedy and drama. Co-helmers Josh Gordon and Will Speck and "Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps" scenarist Allan Loeb follow this dictum, and "The Switch" emerges as not only hilarious but also endearing. The action unfolds in New York City seven years ago as a biologically-challenged single woman, Kassie Larson (Jennifer Aniston of "Marley and Me"), takes the fateful step of having herself artificially inseminates before she becomes too old for children. She finds the perfect donor in a good-looking university professor, Roland (Patrick Wilson of "Watchmen"), who teaches feminist literature. Initially, Kassie receives no support from Wall Street stockbroker Wally Mars (Jason Bateman of "Juno") who is a hopeless hypochondriac. Kassie accuses Wally of being pessimistic, but he claims he is just being realistic. Anyway, Kassie has her baby, christens him Sebastian, and moves away for six years. Wally's life remains unchanged until she returns. Since she has uprooted herself to raise her son in more friendly surroundings, Roland has divorced his adulterous wife. Kassie and he start dating. The complication is that six-year old Sebastian (Thomas Robinson) hates Roland. Ironically, Sebastian prefers the company of Wally, and the two become virtually inseparable.

One day while Wally and Sebastian are riding a bus, another passenger remarks that they look like father and son. Wally informs her that Sebastian isn't his son. Nevertheless, Sebastian treats Wally as if he were his dad. Several occasions occur when Sebastian needs help, and he resorts to Wally. At one point, Sebastian leaves a friend's birthday party after a brawl with a bully and goes out of his way to walk 20 blocks to Wally's apartment. Later, Kassie leaves Sebastian with one of his friends so she can spend a romantic weekend with Roland. As it turns out, Sebastian has contracted head lice and his friend's mom wants him gone. Stuck far away in Michigan, Kassie implores her old friend Wally to treat Sebastian's lice infection until she can return on an overnight flight. The bond between Wally and Sebastian deepens until Wally wonders if he really is Sebastian's father.

Wally searches his memory about the night of Kassie's sperm donor party and remembers that Kassie's perennial best girlfriend, Debbie (Juliette Lewis of "Whip It"), gave him some of her mom's prescription medicine and he got drunk and stumbled into the bathroom where Roland had left his container of sperm. Accidentally, Wally spills Roland's sperm into the sink and decides to replace it. Nothing but feminine magazines are available, and he whips up his own concoction to a picture of TV news anchor Diana Sawyer and replaces Roland's sperm with it. Such is Wally's state of mind that he forgets what he has done until he notices that Sebastian imitates his personality in every aspect. Wally discusses the issue with his close friend and Wall Street colleague Leonard (Jeff Goldblum of "Silverado") and decides to let Kassie in on his secret. Every opportunity that Wally has to deliver this major revelation falls through until our misguided hero attends a get-together at Kassie's apartment where Roland plans to propose marriage to Kassie in front of his older brothers and parents. Imagine the reaction that Kassie has when Wally turns her world upside down with his revelation.

"The Switch" is a consistently funny comedy that doesn't rely on a laugh track or a lowest-common denominator script to make us laugh. Everybody, including newcomer Thomas Robinson, doesn't act as if they were consciously trying to be funny and their fully developed but eccentric characters are a wonder to behold. Typically, a movie with two directors is a surefire recipe for disaster, but neither Gordon nor Speck get in each other's way, and "The Switch" flows smoothly throughout its 101 minutes without convolution.