IDENTITY
Written by Eric
August 03, 2010
| Genre | Thrillers |
| Year | 2003 |
| Country | USA |
| Director | James Mangold |
| Actors | John Cusack, Ray Liotta, Amanda Peet, Alfred Molina, Clea DuVall, Rebecca De Mornay, John C. McGinley, John Hawkes, William Lee Scott, Jake Busey, Pruitt Taylor Vince |
| MPAA Rating | R |
I found Identity to be not the scariest thriller I have seen in a long time, but definitely the smartest...I have waited a long time for a movie like Identity. Its thrills are short-lived, but its chills stayed with me for days as I meticulously pored over every second of the film with its final revelation in mind. The Ring scared me more than Identity, but that film was big on questions and short on answers. Its atmosphere of dread was stronger, but its pieces didn't make a complete picture when you tried to put them together afterward. Identity’s do.
Sadly, Identity seems to be disappointing audiences everywhere, but I was amazed at how skillfully constructed it was, and how well its concept was thought out by the filmmakers. I found it to be not the scariest thriller I have seen in a long time, but definitely the smartest, plus one of the few at all that gives the viewer enough credit to be able to read into its depths without a guided tour. The fact that most viewers do not seem to be doing so should not be held against the movie, should it?
If you've seen the trailer, you know the basic set-up: 10 strangers end up stranded in an old motel in the middle of nowhere. It is a dark and stormy night. And people start DYING! And the killer must be ONE OF US! And it's raining REALLY HARD! And the POWER GOES OUT! The preposterous circumstances that get everyone in the motel in the first place are ingenious. The first and second acts are littered with various bits of inspiration and stylish thrills, connected by murders, screams, and so much rain it's not even funny.
If there are any main characters among the 10 strangers, they are Ed the ex-cop-turned-chauffeur, played by John Cusack in a great performance, and Amanda Peet as an ex-prostitute fleeing Las Vegas. The others include a washed-up movie star, a convict and his parole officer, a wimpy man and his wife and child, the sleazy motel manager, and a young newlywed couple.
I'm usually very suspicious of movies like these, in which the structure is basically "a lot of people are murdered and we have to figure out who's doing it before more people are murdered." Especially in set-ups like this, where it can be reasonably speculated that the culprit may be supernatural. (When one young woman mentions that the motel was built on an old Indian burial ground, I nearly left the theater.) I'm also suspicious of serial killer movies, because filmmakers feel the need to grant the killer god-like stealth, timing, and luck until the plot calls for him to be caught. The first two acts of Identity had me worried that it would turn out to be one of these two things. It had that simplistic feel to it, and I prepared myself for overall disappointment.
But the third act... That third act is where it all came together for me. If I was mildly disappointed by the mediocre thrills of the first two acts, the third act turns around and says, "SURPRISE! I’m smarter than I’ve been acting!" I will not give away what key information is revealed at the end of the second act that kicks off the third one, but suffice it to say that it reveals the film for what it truly is—not quite what it is being advertised as, not quite what people are expecting from the movie they thought they were seeing... Many people will accuse Identity of cheating, but in fact the film does just the opposite. There IS some double-crossing going on here (on the film's part), but absolutely no cheating.
The problem with most twist endings is that they exist only to function as one more thrill. The truly great twist endings will floor you with knowledge that makes every scene leading up to it have new and deeper meaning in light of it. Finally, here is a movie that does this for us. Afterward seeing the film, attentive viewers will recall a goldmine of clues woven into every inch of Identity leading us to its conclusion.
I should qualify this statement by saying that it helps to appreciate the film a lot if you have a PSYCH 101-level knowledge of mental disorders. If you do, I believe the third act will do for you what it did for me. Many people will see it as just another cheap twist ending, but they are judging it by the wrong criteria—they do not realize that by the end, Identity isn't so much a scary movie as a chilling puzzle. And unlike The Ring, all the pieces are there and fit together perfectly.
movie*pie Staff review
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0 of 0 people found the above review helpful
Rating for the first hour: 7 out of 8 slices.
Rating for the last half-hour: 3 out of 8 slices.
I can’t do it. I won’t do it. I will not rate this movie as a whole because – and this will surprise few who see it – the movie is, in fact, two distinctly different films stuck together 2/3 of the way through by a plot twist that comes as somewhat of a cinematic sucker-punch.
As begets any creepy thriller, the movie starts out on a dark and stormy night somewhere in the middle of nowhere, where the only oasis from the pounding rain is a run-down motel with a shifty-looking desk clerk named Larry (John Hawkes). One by one, and through a series of bizarre coincidences, various strangers find themselves seeking refuge from the weather. There’s a prissy actress (Rebecca DeMornay), her driver (John Cusack), a cop (Ray Liotta) transporting a prisoner (Jake Busey), and a young woman (Amanda Peet) who might be a hooker...but we’re never really sure. Two couples also show up: one (John C. McGinley, Leila Kenzle) have had a bad accident on the roads, and the other (Clea DuVall, William Lee Scott) just got hitched in Vegas.
With roads flooded and no sign of a break in the meteorological onslaught, the wayward travelers are all stranded, and before you can say, “WHY would you wander outside alone in the rain in the dark?!” the guests begin dying gruesome deaths...seemingly taking place in reverse order of the room numbers they’d been assigned. 10, 9, 8...etc.
For the first hour of director James Mangold’s horror-thriller-mystery, it’s like a wildly colorful array of puzzle pieces are thrown at the audience...who are then left with the deliciously fun task of trying to figure out what’s going on and how everything fits together. Who’s doing the killing? Why? How did all these people wind up in the same place? Why can’t they leave? What’s happening?!?! There are even hints that it might be something supernatural, since a Native American burial ground surrounds the place. More importantly, what does any of it have to do with a psychiatrist (Alfred Molina) desperately trying to get a stay of execution for his serial-killing patient somewhere else altogether?
Unfortunately, once things come suddenly, glaringly into focus and the secrets become clear for the audience, the film kind of runs out of steam and I was left with a resounding, “Wait, THAT’S IT?!?!” reaction. Once everyone figures out what’s happening, it’s almost a bit of a letdown and feels like a cheat on the part of the filmmakers. The wonderful promise of a spine-tingling moviegoing experience is abandoned and, frankly, I really wanted to see the end of the movie I started out watching.
Overall, the movie delivers on its promise of thrills and chills, and it does make for one hell of a ride...for a while. I only wish I’d enjoyed the end as much as the beginning.
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