THE star of this disastrous American comedy mish-mash also wrote it and her husband Ben Falcone directed it.

Melissa McCarthy plays Michelle, returned to the orphanage by every couple who tried to foster her, in early middle age driven by an overweening ego not justified by her behaviour toward others and wealthy beyond belief from seminars teaching women how to succeed in business.

Nothing wrong with that. It’s the American way. Until Michelle’s single-mom PA Claire (Kristen Bell) reminds her that today is the third anniversary of when Michelle had promised her a raise three years hence. Then we learn three things. Lacking any kind of virtue, a characteristic McCarthy’s played before, Michelle is a first-class, gold-medal, grade A+ selfish, lying bitch. Claire, with first-class, gold-medal, grade A+ professional skills, lacks any form of assertiveness. And Claire’s pre-pubescent daughter Rachel (Ella Anderson) thinks that Michelle needs emotional support.

Michelle goes to jail for fraud. On release, she moves in with Claire, hijacks Rachel’s brownies recipe and bases a corporation on it, which her orphanage boyfriend Renault (Peter Dinklage) – richer than she ever was – wants to buy.

McCarthy does great physical comedy, especially spectacular pratfalls. But any film that she and hubby write and direct needs the steadying influence of an independent professional with a sound track record to avoid moral bankruptcy and corrosive ego.

She and Falcone also produced it, obviously to make money but perhaps also to make a statement about women in business. I pondered what McCarthy intended such a statement to convey. Hearing a mainly female audience laughing at her self-serving gags, I found little to laugh at.

At Capitol 6, Dendy, Hoyts and Palace Electric