Kurt Loder Reviews Side Effects and Identity Thief
Steven Soderbergh's Side Effects is a grippingly "Hitchcockian" movie, writes Kurt Loder, a lurid tale of a man trapped in a thickening web of circumstance—the sort of story that Hitchcock might well have wanted to tell himself. In the late director's absence, Soderbergh, who over the course of 24 years has demonstrated a rare facility in a wide array of genres, proves to be just the man for the job.
In Identify Thief, meanwhile, the wonderful comedic actress Melissa McCarthy is basically used as a walking fat joke, a pathetic loser with no hope of ever surmounting her size. She's the butt of endless unpleasant gibes, and the movie's stretch for happy-happy at the end can't wash away the sour taste of all that's come before.