TheRetroCritic

Well it looks like the old uptight person/large person road trip comedy genre still has some mileage on it! With Due Date and now Identity Thief , it's looking like John Hughes' classic Planes, Trains And Automobiles might have been more influential than we originally thought. And for years I thought Tommy Boy would be the last word on that genre... This time around we've got Jason Bateman playing a normal boring dude with a normal boring office job (fancy that!) who gets his identity stolen by a loud, obnoxious, manipulative Melissa McCarthy. To keep his new job, Bateman decides to travel to Miami to somehow find his sworn enemy and bring her back to his state to get arrested. Of course, this already not very good-sounding plan turns out to go really wrong. For one thing, the identity thief in question keeps punching people in the neck, she's hunted by criminals for some reason and is generally a nightmare to be around. To sum up: she makes John Candy in th

Jack Nicholson is Warren Schmidt, an old dude who goes on a road trip after his wife's death in order to stop his daughter from getting married to a loser, occasionally he writes inappropriate letters to an African child he's never met. Yes, I know, it doesn't sound like THE story of our time but don't be fooled, About Schmidt is one of director Alexander Payne's best and boasts one of Nicholson's best performances. For one thing he's not grinning, laughing maniacally or generally being a nutjob so against-type? I think so. His Warren is an imperfect man of contradictions: mild-mannered and very much an introvert, he's always deep in thought yet doesn't seem to think things through completely, prone to adapting to a certain routine yet impulsive, sweet but a bit tight with his money and occasionally pretty selfish. He's a man of few words but a hell of a lot is going on in his head whether it's complaints about his wife's little ann