The Forgotten Melissa McCarthy Comedy That Blew Up On Netflix

Melissa McCarthy has come a seriously long way since her early days as a (beloved) supporting character on "Gilmore Girls." When the comedic powerhouse appeared in "Bridesmaids" in 2011 as Megan Price — arguably the strangest person in an already-weird cohort of bridesmaids to Maya Rudolph's Lillian — she earned herself an Academy Award nod for best supporting actor and took home an Emmy for her sitcom "Mike & Molly" in the aftermath, establishing her as one of Hollywood's funniest performers. She's had a lot of critically acclaimed successes since then, but one of her comedies, directed by her husband Ben Falcone, isn't one of them. 

"Identity Thief" released in 2013, and despite lackluster reviews, the movie was a box office success — it earned an astounding $175 million against a modest budget of $35 million — but it definitely isn't one of McCarthy's very best efforts. With all of that said, "Identity Thief" is currently making waves on Netflix, so clearly, it's picking up a new audience over a decade after its release. What is "Identity Thief" about, what did critics say about the movie when it was released, and what has McCarthy been doing since?

It seems obvious, but still, here's the gist of "Identity Thief." One day, a Denver man named Sandy Patterson — played by comedy heavyweight Jason Bateman — agrees to sign up for identity theft protection, unaware that he's purchasing it from a con artist named Diana (Melissa McCarthy). After a series of confusing events, including Sandy's credit card getting repeatedly declined, he learns that he's had his identity stolen by Diana, and the police basically tell him that they can't do anything because she's in Florida. Sandy ends up tracking Diana down in the Panhandle State, where she promptly steals his car; in order to bring her to justice back in Denver, Sandy has to get Diana across the country by car (they have the same IDs, so they can't fly).

The two end up getting chased by a different set of criminals — whom Diana scammed with a bad credit card — which, obviously, complicates everything further. Sandy finally brings her to justice, though, and the two form a fairly demented friendship ("Identity Thief" is a buddy comedy at its heart). So did critics like this comedic caper from McCarthy and her husband? No. They did not.

Over on Rotten Tomatoes, "Identity Thief" has a dismally low score of 19% with a critical consensus that declares, "'Identity Thief's' few laughs are attributable to Melissa McCarthy and Jason Bateman, who labor mightily to create a framework for the movie's undisciplined plotline." This is a pretty gentle reaction compared to what some of the specific critics said; as James White at Empire Magazine put it, "Clever premise, witless execution." 

Andrew O'Hehir, writing for Salon, agreed: "Considering that it starts out with two distinctive and likable stars and a reasonably promising premise, 'Identity Thief' reaches impressive heights of laziness and idiocy." Roxane Gay went after the movie's unfortunate and cheap humor, writing for Buzzfeed, "There's something to offend everyone in 'Identity Thief:' racist jokes, gay jokes, the word 'vagina' wielded as an insult," and at Grantland, Westley Morris said, "You don't care enough about these people to want to see them come out on top."

According to Trevor Johnston at Time Out, not even McCarthy and Bateman's shared talents could save the movie. "'Identity Thief' saddles Bateman with a thankless uptight straight-man role while heaping serial slapstick ignominies on his co-star, who gamely bounds through everything the script throws at her," he opined. Other critics tried to find positives but just couldn't do it, like Bilge Ebiri at Vulture: "'Identity Thief' is funny enough, but it needed to be darker, raunchier, and crazier to live up to the promise of its casting."

The good news here is that, despite the poor critical reception for "Identity Thief," it didn't bring down Melissa McCarthy's career (or Jason Bateman's, for that matter). That same year, she delivered a much better performance in Paul Feig's buddy cop comedy "The Heat," which pairs McCarthy with straight man Sandra Bullock, but in 2014, McCarthy's husband Ben Falcone delivered another dud disguised as a showcase for his wife with "Tammy." Thankfully, McCarthy worked with Feig once again for the 2015 spoof "Spy" — one of her best performances to date — and she went on to earn some serious accolades for future projects.

In 2017, McCarthy won her second Emmy for her guest appearances on "Saturday Night Live," and in 2018, she picked up her second Oscar nomination in a decade for playing a very different con woman than she played in "Identity Thief" — the real life letter forger Lee Israel, whom McCarthy portrayed in Marielle Heller's stunning biopic "Can You Ever Forgive Me?" Since then, McCarthy has worked on comedies like "Thunder Force" and played Ursula in the live-action version of "The Little Mermaid," returned to Stars Hollow for the reboot "Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life," and is currently on Hulu's hit series "Only Murders in the Building." It's safe to say that "Identity Thief" didn't have any adverse affect on her career, and clearly, it's making people laugh on Netflix anyway.