BY MICHAEL GOODPASTER
In this movie Jason Bateman plays a dude named Sandy Patterson. He gets his identity stolen by a loud and somewhat-sleazy woman played by Melissa McCarthy. The name confusion results in a lot of the obvious “but that’s a girl’s name” jokes. Eventually, Bateman finds McCarthy in Florida and has to get her to come back to Denver so charges can be pressed and Bateman can get his dream job. It’s a stretch. A few years back, before the technology boom, I got about $20 charged online from someone who somehow got my number. To get the charges dropped and to get the money credited back was as simple as one drunken phone call. This is “now” and Bateman’s character has plenty more means than I do. I kept thinking about this through the movie so maybe my own personal logic got in the way. In “the way” of what? I don’t know. I actually did like this movie. I know I set it up to knock it down, but it was a pretty amusing movie. Melissa McCarthy is on her A-game and Bateman plays that over the top straight man perfectly. They had good chemistry and the comedic beats all hit hard. There are some zany characters, jokes that are set up and knocked down, and character reveals here. It’s a road comedy. You know what will happen, so why should I spoil the ride. It’s a “two strangers have to have a road movie” comedy that always seem to rock. It goes back to ‘Tommy Boy’ and before that was ‘Planes, Trains, and Automobiles’. These movies tend on being awesome. This wasn’t on the level of those movies, but it’s still worth checking out. The rest of the cast isn’t anything to sleep on either. Then again it would be hard to sleep on the lines of Jon Favreau, Amanda Peet, Morris Chestnut, John Cho, Robert Patrick, Eric Stonestreet, Jonathan Banks, and others. The problem is that the movie didn’t get enough love. For some reason I haven’t heard a lot of people talk about seeing his. It just didn’t connect with a mass audience, but it’s good enough to have an endless run on basic cable. THAT is when I’d recommend watching this. I think a perfect viewing would be a random Sunday afternoon where you just want to chill out and watch a good movie. This is one of those movies. B
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