Film Review: Putzes and Pill Poppers -- "Identity Thief" and "Side Effects"

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Wednesday, 13 February 2013 20:04

Written by Marion Dreyfus

Identity Thief
Directed by Seth Gordon
starring Jason Bateman, Melissa McCarthy

A surprisingly vulgar, crude, and manically unfunny film to avoid is this unfortunate Identity Thief, which takes a topical red flag issue and makes it absurd and fleece-lined cuddly by starring the usually hilarious Melissa McCarthy and the solidly talented Jason Bateman. Most of the film is so unpleasant and unbelievably ill-intentioned that you won’t believe these two stellar actors would sign on.

Near-nebbish-citizen and mild-mannered businessman Sandy Patterson (Bateman) treks from Colorado to Florida to hunt his criminal nemesis, a seemingly ditzy, cheery-looking woman (also named Sandy Patterson or so it seems) played by McCarthy who has been living very large after hoisting Patterson’s identity, cards and bank account. 

The audience managed to not laugh throughout, which is no accomplishment, since there was precious little to evoke it. Even Bateman’s smart downplaying and under-acting fails to ignite anything beyond disgust at the plot turns.

Amanda Peet has the thankless role as his wife Penelope awaiting Patterson’s return home for the length of the film. The last 10 minutes of wrap-up do not redeem this downer, and even this writer and her usual movie-seat companion failed to ratchet the laugh-meter up to the eensiest first notch. Worse, the seriousness of the issue, and the obnoxiousness of its treatment here, is such that tension knotted one’s stomach for the full first hour. The scriptwriter should wear a sign on his chest with a huge E for execrable as he goes about his clearly delta-minus life. 

Side Effects
Directed by Steven Soderbergh
starring Jude Law, Rooney Mara, Catherine Zeta-Jones,  Polly Draper

A cleverly plotted film that only reluctantly becomes evident, Side Effects is a Hitchcockian roller coaster ride starring a taut Jude Law, a nearly unrecognizable Rooney Mara, a buttoned-up Catherine Zeta-Jones and Polly Draper (she of the whiskey voice from Thirty Something).

Not wanting to say too much about the plot since one of the rewarding aspects of this film is discovering what’s going on, but here's a nominal summation.

A young New York couple’s tidy world unravels when a new anti-anxiety drug prescribed by Emily's (Mara) psychiatrist (Law) has unexpected effects on its patient, husband (Channing Tatum) -- who has just been released from prison -- and others. Don’t expect Tatum, again beefcake delectable, to be seen for more than the briefest of celluloid moments.

The baddies in this thriller are not whom or what you originally think, especially given the title.

The pharma industry now dubs them “adverse events,” which neatly avoids the chilling taint connoted by the earlier, more popularly known term. One of the choicer elements of the film is its exceptional photography; one sees a Gotham that is not the tired vernacular.

This scenic Trou Normand may coast under one’s radar, but it is elegant, almost-Gordon Willis-level cinematography (from Woody Allen’s more elegaic films), a gift floated to the receptive viewer.

Audience members, many of them apparently physicians and therapists, gabbed with each other afterwards, discussing their take on the goings-on, comparing notes from their practices.

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