Love heals.  Though I do not wish to be stereotypical, one can often find that those who run afoul of the law or participate in some other deviant behavior experience a lack of genuine care and concern at some point in their lives.  There will be those who reject what I am about to say, but Catholicism teaches that the easiest path to experiencing this emotion and avoiding problems is through the Faith.  Caveats are needed.  There are other ways of finding these most basic of human needs, but they are trickier.  This is also not to say that everyone who has faithfully devoted themselves to being Catholic has had the most perfect experience.  Any inconsistencies are the result of our own failings, not God, who is the embodiment of perfect love.  Because of these difficulties, people seek out other avenues that can lead to problems.  I am not here to tell you that today’s movie, Identity Thief (2013), has anything to do with religion, but keep these ideas in mind as I discuss the title character.

The thing that accountant Sandy Patterson (Jason Bateman) cannot tell as we open Identity Thief is that he is being scammed.  As he is in his office at a large brokerage firm, he gets a call from a woman, who we later will name Diana (Melissa McCarthy), claiming to be from a fraud protection company.  She claims that his personal information is under attack, and that he needs to take steps to prevent this from happening.  Without a second thought, he gives her his full legal name, address, social security number, etc., and goes about his day.  Predictably, she goes on to open a number of credit cards in his name and max them all out in a massive spending spree.  Meanwhile, he is called into the office of his boss, Harold Cornish (Jon Favreau).  When Harold starts talking about bonuses, Sandy believes everyone in the company is going to get extra money.  Instead, Harold, who does not remember Sandy’s name and makes fun of its effeminate nature when it comes up, says the boost is only for top executives.  This is a blow for Sandy because his struggling family is in need of more income, particularly with his wife, Trish Patterson (Amanda Peet), expecting their third child.  As he is dutifully writing out the large note, his co-worker, Daniel Casey (John Cho), tells Sandy to meet him in the parking garage.  Once there, Daniel and a number of their other colleagues propose to start a company and take all their clients with them.  When Sandy hesitates, Daniel says that he plans on making the former a vice president with a significant pay raise.  Sandy accepts and Trish is overjoyed by the news.  However, it is when he is going to his first day in his new position that trouble begins to find him.  The first incident is when his credit card is denied at the gas pump.  Next, he is pulled over and arrested for skipping bail.  As it turns out, Diana had used her stolen funds to get hammered at a bar, an escapade that led to her incarceration.  The matter is cleared up only when the Denver police precinct gets the mug shot of the perpetrator in Florida and it is plain that Sandy is not Diana.  What is equally apparent is that Sandy is the victim of identity theft.  It gets worse when he finally arrives at the office.  Word has reached Daniel about the legal problems, which he says will not reflect well on their clients.  Next, Detective Reilly (Morris Chestnut), the police officer who had interrogated Sandy, arrives with more cops.  Apparently, Diana under Sandy’s name is wanted in connection to drug and gun charges.  This all is nearly too much for Daniel, who is leaning towards firing Sandy.  At the last moment, though, Sandy realizes he can find Diana and bring her to Denver where she can be caught by the authorities admitting to her crimes.  Though Daniel and Detective Reilly agree to this plan, Trish is unsure given that her husband is not a bounty hunter.  Nonetheless, he sees this as his only option to get his life back, and does not think Diana will be too hard to persuade.  Of course, their first encounter goes poorly, with her proving adept at slipping the handcuffs he had brough with him.  He finally catches up with her at her house where it turns out that those extra criminal cases are connected to her doing business with crime boss Paul (Jonathan Banks).  Paul sends his two goons, Julian (Tip “T.I.” Harris) and Marisol (Génesis Rodriguez), to kill Diana for the bad credit cards the grifter provided.  Diana and Sandy barely escape with their lives, but she points out that his plan of flying back to Denver will not work because they currently share a name.  Thus, they will be driving, and the chase is underway.  Added to the mix is some kind of enforcer, called a “skiptracer” (Robert Patrick), who is hired by somebody to locate Sandy, who he thinks is Diana.  Whoever the skiptracer is, he is relentless in tracking down Diana, and his temporary capture ends with a brutal car crash.  Everyone walks away from it, literally, and Diana and Sandy spend a crazy night in the woods that results in him being bitten by a spider.  In the morning, they are able to get cheap wheels, but are soon again in need of cash.  This is when Diana offers to help them by conning Harold, getting access to his information from the St. Louis branch of Sandy’s former company.  Yet, the caper is quickly discovered and he and Diana are back in handcuffs.  As they are being transported, Julian, Marisol, and the skiptracer all converge, and in the wreckage, the three pursuers are taken into custody and Diana and Sandy get away.  From there, it is back to Denver where Diana spends the night with the Pattersons where she gets to meet and endear herself to his family.  Thus, in the morning she turns herself in at Sandy’s office, and he gets his life back to normal.

The final scene in Identity Thief is set a year later with the Pattersons visiting Diana in prison.  It is proof of what I had been saying in the introduction about the healing power of love.  It is not an easy road to this point for Sandy.  He goes to Florida with every intention of viewing her as his enemy.  Along the way, he learns more about her life and the rough circumstances that led to her choosing a life of crime, such as her being an orphan.  She is not immediately predisposed towards liking him, either, and is about to escape when she answers a phone call from home on his cell.  It is from his children, and the moment touches her.  Beneath her deviant behavior, in other words, is a person who longs for love.  That may sound corny, but in an earlier sequence she purchases drinks for a bar full of strangers that represents her twisted way of trying to make friends.  The reason this does not work, and never will, is because it sets up a transactional relationship, with one side expecting something in return for their affection.  God does not view us in the same manner.  He loves us unconditionally.  The interactions we have with our loved ones, like a family such as the Pattersons, is meant to approximate how God feels for us.  It will never be quite the same because only God can provide that perfect love.  The point is that is what Diana hears when she picks up the call from the Patterson girls.  I pray that all of you get the opportunity to experience that outpouring of affection.  I know that God wants it for you, and I will be praying that it comes to you.

There is no need for prayer when it comes to a movie like Identity Thief because it is exactly what you would expect.  There are a few inappropriate moments, not just sexually, but with jokes regarding MacCarthy’s weight.  They are not good in any setting.  Otherwise, you have seen this movie and you can safely skip it.