Identity Thief is Melissa McCarthy’s first outing as a lead actress in a comedy. Her recent success with Bridesmaids, This is 40, and Mike & Molly suggest she’d be ready for the position, but the film ultimately doesn’t live up to expectations.

Sandy Patterson, played by Jason Bateman (Arrested Development), is your regular dad who’s just trying to make enough money so he can support his wife and two young girls. His day-to-day life, which takes a turn for the better thanks to a new job prospect, is suddenly disrupted when he discovers a woman has stolen his identity in Florida.

After a discussion with the police, Sandy realizes it’s up to him to head down to Florida to bring her back himself. The name-clearing process takes about a year following an identity thief getting caught, and Sandy must bring impostor Sandy back to Colorado so he can make her go on record to his boss about the alleged crimes.

Diana (McCarthy) makes for a unique thief. She’s large, violent, crude, and generally a laugh to hear and watch. Sandy must convince Diana to come back with him to Colorado – a process that takes a lot of patience and some out-of-character decisions for Sandy himself.

Along the way we’re introduced to a few supporting characters including enemies who are after Diana. There’s also Big Chuck, played by Eric Stonestreet, who’s a quick love interest and robbery attempt for Diana. Although I was really looking forward to seeing how Stonestreet and McCarthy gel together, Stonestreet ultimately doesn’t live up to the laughs he delivers on Modern Family; perhaps because he is much more in-tune with the flamboyant gay role than a woman-hungry cowboy (Stonestreet is straight, by the way).

There were a couple of moments in the film that made us feel the need to get critical on this light-hearted comedy. In one scene we see Diana and Sandy having to camp out for a night, and an ensuing animal attack looks and feels very out of place. In another part of the storyline, Diana gets hit by a fast moving car and suffers absolutely no damage. The writers seem to poke fun at the situation by having Sandy question how she survived the hit, but given that this story is set in reality, it comes off as simply impossible and takes us past any attempts at suspending disbelief.

The aforementioned enemies were another part of this film that needed more development. The cat-and-mouse game where Julian (T.I.), Marisol (Genesis Rodriguez), and Skiptracer (Robert Patrick) were always just a step or two behind Diana and Sandy was contrived and did not create a sense of urgency.

Identity Thief feels like it needed to cook in one of Diana’s illegally-purchased microwaves for a bit longer. McCarthy delivered the very large majority of this film’s semi-entertaining comedy, and Bateman didn’t bring a performance that will stand out amongst his fans. The plot was off to a bad start from the beginning when we had to accept that there was no way for Sandy to save his identity and his job without having to drag Diana back to Colorado himself. With Bateman’s Arrested Development cred and McCarthy’s recent string of comedy gigs (whether on live TV, film, etc), it’s a wonder the two even agreed to such a lackluster script.

As a fan of both of these stars and with Universal’s recent line of great comedies like Ted, This Is 40 and Pitch Perfect, I was really looking forward to this one. But walking out of the theater, I couldn’t help but feel let down. I wasn’t as robbed as one of Diana’s victims, but close.

Grade: C-

Rated: R (for sexual content and language)

Identity Thief opens in theaters on February 8, 2013.