February is rarely the month for comedies. It seems more commonly to attract desultory action films and bottom-of-the-barrel dramas. So expectations were not that high for Seth Gordon’s Identity Thief, a better-than-it-could-be comedy that’s funny enough but could have easily stood to be 10-15 minutes shorter.

My full review is at Film Journal International:

Jason Bateman (who also has a producing credit) plays Sandy Patterson, a milquetoast mid-level worker at a Denver financial firm. He discovers that his identity has been stolen by a Florida woman who’s been maxing out his credit cards and even got arrested (as him). In one of those only-in-the-movies wrinkles, he decides to drive to Florida and bring the woman back to clear his name. The problem is that when he gets down there, Diana (Melissa McCarthy) has no intention of helping him out. She’d rather punch him in the throat and make a wheezing run for it…

Identity Thief opens wide on Friday.

You can see the trailer here: