I wasn’t expecting much from Identity Thief. I thought I was in for another movie where two characters who start off as arch nemeses end up falling in love, providing the audience with some humor on their march to the altar. So I was happily surprised when the movie turned out not to feature two star-crossed lovers from opposite sides of the track.

In Identity Thief Sandy Patterson’s (Jason Bateman) identity is stolen, but police policies require that the thief be brought back to Patterson’s hometown of Denver to be arrested.  He manages to track down the thief (Melissa McCarthy) in Florida, but bringing her in proves to be more difficult than he had anticipated, as she is being tailed by a bounty hunter and two victims of her fake ID business.

The movie’s main ideas aren’t original, but the subplots and jokes put a fresh spin on the familiar story of two people at odds who are forced to take a road trip together.

McCarthy’s character seems a bit recycled from her role in Bridesmaids in which she played an outsider who turns out to have a good heart. – but her humor is the highlight of Identity Thief and most of laughs in the movie are a result of her. Bateman shines as the straight-laced character, responding perfectly to McCarthy’s antics.

The movie has great cuts and timing from the actors, which keeps it moving even through the intentionally painful parts. Perhaps the most excruciating part is when McCarthy’s character is hitting on a stranger in a bar while Bateman, desperately tries to get her to leave, but McCarthy’s falsified and embarrassing story about his past just makes for an uncomfortable, yet funny encounter.

Identity Thief isn’t as funny as director Seth Gordon’s last movie (Horrible Bosses), which also starred Jason Bateman, but it was still an entertaining way to pass a couple hours and is worth the ticket price for people looking for a laugh.

Identity Thief is rated R and runs for 111 minutes.