Film

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Identity Thief

Cashing in on her Oscar nominated turn in Bridesmaids, Melissa McCarthy gets a headlining role alongside Jason Bateman in Identity Thief. While both performers are talented and make the best of the crap heap of a script they are handed, it’s not enough to make this anything more than a desperate misfire. McCarthy has a lot of talent. One only need see her in The Nines to know of her dramatic capabilities. Her scope goes well beyond slapstick comedy. Yet, here she is being smashed in the face with guitars and asked to lip synch that stupid milk shake song while sitting in the passenger’s seat for yet another riff on Planes, Trains and Automobiles. This is the sort of junk Chris Farley would be handed back in the days before his heart exploded. McCarthy is a big woman, and so she is cast in the role of sloppy clown to Bateman’s dapper straight man. Well, McCartney is also a beautiful and talented woman, and deserving of a more classy showcase. Watching this garbage, I was surprised director Seth Gordon never forced her to put on a few-sizes-too-small windbreaker and have her sing “Fat Girl in a Little Jacket.” Bateman’s Sandy Patterson gets his identity stolen by McCarthy’s Diana and faces legal and job troubles as a result. So he leaves Colorado for Florida in search of “Bilbo,” or so he calls her, because the cops won’t help him. When the two meet up, turns out Diana has a mean throat punch and will not go quietly. The two have a couple of good fights, with Diana getting smashed in the head with a guitar and struck with a waffle iron in one of them. Identity Thief actually does OK in the

physical comic violence category. I chortled a bit at the hits these two were taking. Probably would’ve been a better movie if it were just 90 minutes of Diana and Sandy throwing stuff at each other and getting hit by cars. Sandy eventually gets her into a car and, in the tradition of road comedies, the journey starts off bad with the two hating each other. Sandy must endure a night of Diana having sex with a stranger, various roadside disasters, andby Bob Grimm the aforementioned Diana singing to the radio. Of course, Sandy and his family will evenbgrimm@ tually see that Diana, even though she hasnewsreview.com robbed them blind, is a great lady deep down inside. She actually spends the night at their house holding hands with the kids as they sleep. 1 I don’t know. I think it would take more than Diana putting mashed potatoes on her face for a couple of laughs at the dinner table to be forgiven for destroying their financial lives. Sandy’s family consists of everybody’s goto movie wife, Amanda Peet. Peet is asked to perform the film’s most impossible task, that being playing a wife and mother who would even allow Diana in the house. My mom is a relatively meek lady, but if anybody like Diana tried to come in through the front door when I was a kid, she would’ve faced the wrath of mom and her wooden spoon. God dammit, I hated that stupid wooden spoon. Gordon, who put together the much better Horrible Bosses, is basically working with one joke, that being Diana is a mess and Sandy will be tortured dealing with her. Gordon tries to redeem Diana by the end of the film, even giving her a makeover that results in some cringe-worthy dialogue. Still, it’s hard to have a lot of fun watching a man’s life getting wrecked by identity theft. Hell, somebody tried to steal my identity and go shopping with my debit card just a couple of months ago. I wasn’t laughing then, and I wasn’t laughing all that much at Identity Thief. Hollywood … please … don’t squander McCarthy’s talent. Give her the dramatic, respectable roles she deserves. Ω

“I’m of legal drinking age. I promise!”

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2Bullet to the Head Like Arnold Schwarzenegger before him in The Last Stand, Sylvester Stallone gives it his all in service to a script that fails to distinguish itself. The results? Nobody seems to care about either star vehicle. Walter Hill (48 Hrs.) directs in a very Walter Hill way, meaning his action/buddy films tend to feel the same. Unfortunately, this one has more in common with his Another 48 Hrs., in which the formula had already gotten tired. Stallone plays a tattooed thug named James Bonomo, and his buddy is South Korean Taylor Kwon (Sung Kang), which leads to more than a few uncomfortable racist jokes. The plot involves the usual crap: a double cross, a partner getting killed, somebody getting kidnapped and ax fights. You must give credit to Stallone; he looks great and he delivers his stupid lines with much aplomb. Kang is just there for the ride, offering little in a role once meant for Thomas Jane. I will say that this film features the best Christian Slater scene is a long while. But one great Slater scene does not a good movie make.

3Django Unchained Man, it bugs me that Quentin Tarantino’s latest is only passably entertaining. I have loved his past films. This is the first one I’m not in love with. Jamie Foxx plays Django, a slave purchased by a bounty hunter (Christoph Waltz) two years before the Civil War. Django is purchased because he has seen some targets the bounty hunter is pursuing. Django is promised his freedom after they find those targets. When those targets are gotten, they pursue Django’s wife (Kerry Washington) on a plantation owned by the repellent Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio). This one follows some of the same blueprints as Tarantino’s own Inglourious Basterds. It feels as if he is repeating himself a bit. There are some great performances, especially from Waltz and DiCaprio. It just doesn’t have the heft of past Tarantino efforts. Perhaps this has something to do with this being the first Tarantino movie edited by someone other than the late Sally Menke.

2Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters This seriously had the makings of the worst, dumbest movie ever made. Hansel and Gretel, the famed gingerbread house eaters, survive their ordeal to become worldclass witch hunters. The result is bad, but it’s one of those so-bad-it’s-almost-good endeavors. Jeremy Renner somehow got talked into this thing, and he gives it his best shot, as does Gemma Arterton as his sister, Gretel. Famke Janssen is on hand as a mean witch who plans to take the blood of a bunch of children and do something or other with it. I wasn’t really following, or caring. The 3-D is bad, so go ahead and opt for 2-D. It’s got Peter “Where is Pancakes House?” Stormare in it too, which is usually the mark of a bad film unless it’s Fargo. Lots of blood and curse words get this one an R-rating. Director Tommy Wirkola seems as if he’s playing it for camp at times, and that would’ve been the better move for the whole film. It really slows down when it takes itself too seriously.

3Mama This genuinely chilling haunted fairytale comes from producer Guillermo del Toro and writer/director Andrés Muschietti, and is based on Mushcietti’s original short film. Two little girls are abandoned by their demented father in the forest. They are discovered years later and adopted by their uncle (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) and his girlfriend (Jessica Chastain). The little girls have taken on the characteristics of feral beasts and are convinced they are being watched over by a force they call “Mama.” As it turns out, Mama is very real, and a decent CGI creation that is both scary and just the right touch of funny. The film works well not just because Muschietti knows how to construct a good scare, but also because he does a great job getting you to care for the little girls and the Chastain character. Chastain, looking rather gothic in this one, delivers another good performance, even though she isn’t very convincing as a bass player in a punk band. I was scared throughout much of this movie.

2Movie 43 If you are going to make a movie like Kentucky Fried Movie, why not hire that film’s director, John Landis? He’s a guy who could turn in some solid/stupid comedy, and his slate seems pretty open these days. Instead, a bunch of directors try their hand at slob comedy and get very mixed results. Liev Schreiber and Naomi Watts score the most points as a couple homeschooling their son and making sure he gets the complete, humiliating experience. Terrence Howard gets a good turn as a college basketball coach, and that’s about it for the OK stuff. Most of this film is big stars like Hugh Jackman, Kate Winslet and Halle Berry embarrassing themselves. Hell, Jackman even does a good chunk of the film with a scrotum neck. Richard Gere takes part in the film’s lamest segment involving an MP3 player that looks like a super model. A lot of dud jokes with some sporadic laughter. It’s not the disaster that a lot of critics are calling it, but it’s not all that good, either.

3Side Effects The first half of director Steven Soderbergh’s alleged feature film’s swan song is excellent, while the second half is only passably good. Jude Law stars as a doctor treating a depressed patient (Rooney Mara) who is given an experimental drug with some nasty results. The film is at once a mystery and an indictment of the worldwide pharmaceutical industry, and it hums along nicely for a good chunk of the running time. Then, it suddenly becomes a mediocre Brian De Palma movie as the mysteries are solved, and it gets a little hokey. Good things happen before it unravels, with Mara doing some nice work alongside Channing Tatum and Catherine Zeta-Jones. Soderbergh says this is it for him. Hopefully, he just takes a couple of years off and finds himself back behind the camera someday. This movie is OK, but I would like to see him go out on a better note.

2Stand Up Guys A bunch of great actors get together and do their best with middling material. Al Pacino plays a criminal released from a long prison haul, and Christopher Walken plays the guy who is supposed to pick him up at the prison gate and take his life soon thereafter. I have a hard time with this premise right off the bat, because the two are best friends, and if you’re a crime boss with any brains and want somebody smoked, you don’t hire the dude’s best friend to do the gig. Don’t you think there’s a chance the dude won’t follow through? Anyways, Pacino and Walken hang out for a night that includes stealing cars, snorting prescription drugs, and hanging out with another old guy (Alan Arkin). The trio makes most of this watchable, but with this cast, you want something more than just watchable. Pacino works hard to get some credibility back after a string of loser movies, and he redeems himself just fine. Walken is good here, playing a man with more depth than his usual parts. Arkin is just doing his shtick. Nothing all that surprising happens.

5Zero Dark Thirty Director Kathryn Bigelow getting snubbed by Oscar for this taut, scary, intelligent movie about the war on terror and hunt for Bin Laden is a travesty. Well, it’s a travesty when it comes to movies and stuff, not so much in the grand scheme of things. Still, Bigelow deserves praise for putting together a movie that is both exciting political thriller and terrific action movie. Golden Globe winner and Oscar nominee Jessica Chastain is deserving of the accolades as Maya, a composite character of CIA agents who managed to find Bin Laden in Pakistan and end his life. The film contains scenes of torture, but it doesn’t feel “pro-torture” by any means. It’s a great movie that will only get greater with time, and yet another reason to call Bigelow one of the best in the business.

Reno

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