Sorry to bring up Lucille Ball, one of the comic icons of the early TV generation in relation to–er, Melissa McCarthy. Yet I can’t help but liken the rotund, too-easily-misunderstood McCarthy to a sorry replica of Ball (Lucy on steroids if you will). You want to grasp the thrill of experiencing an underdog who digs in deep for reprisals while knowing just how to manipulate the funny bone? Check out I Love Lucy.
And stop your McCarthy check-out the sooner the better. While her supporting role in Bridesmaids was the best thing about the film, and her turn opposite Sandra Bullock in The Heat transcended a mediocre script, here McCarthy reverts right back to her turgid turn in the abominable Identity Thief. In three years she has gone from an Oscar nominated actress to, essentially, a hack ready to take on any screenplay–no matter how nondescript. Only, here McCarthy actually shares a writing credit– so it’s hard for her to pass the buck.
Little does it matter that Susan Sarandon, Kathy Bates, Toni Collette, Mark Duplass, Allison Janney, Dan Aykroyd and Sandra Oh are all around to try to save this turkey. Outside of Bates and Aykroyd, they’re more like spectators at a funeral.
Let’s see. If you really want to know, the “plot” is something about a hard-luck chick who loses her job and her husband on the same day and decides to go on a road trip with her doty, alcoholic grandma (Sarandon). Along the way she doesn’t think of going back for granny’s diabetes meds but instead decides to hold up a fast food joint to get bail money after feisty granny finds her way in the slammer. Seriously. Then, to try and gain some contemporary cred we meet Sarandon’s brash lesbian cousin, Bates, who likes to throw parties at her plush house.
The sickest part of the film contains quasi-romantic scenes between McCarthy and Duplass that are guaranteed to having you running for the lobby. In this progressive age where sincere attempts to curb the obesity epidemic are challenged at every turn, it you’re going to throw fat jokes out there, they better be good. Here, instead, the goings on head downhill as soon as McCarthy in an early scene grabs her crotch like a guy. By the time the mood has completely changed from shrill shock comedy to bullshit bathos, she’s mooing with Duplass looking down at Niagara Falls. You’ll either be truly ill by then or completely ready to put this chick on the permanent boycott list.