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I
thought I had the whole movie, Identity, figured out just by watching the
trailer. Well, I was half right, and by careful observation of the clues writer
Michael Cooney so carefully left for us to follow, I was able to put it
together, before all was revealed to a stunned audience. Now, I just wasn’t
the casual observer out to enjoy a mystery/thriller. My mission was to unravel
the story and discover all of the mistakes before the final curtain. I must say
though, at one point I really doubted myself and was about to go another
direction. The story was, that through a series of connected events a group of strangers are stranded at a cheap Nevada motel while a storm is flooding the area. One by one the strangers are being killed as new clues are delivered. While this story is taking place a death row convict is being transported to have a final ruling as to his sanity, 24 hours before he is scheduled to die. The York family suddenly blows out a tire in the pouring rain. A stiletto shoe belonging to Paris (Amanda Peet, Changing Lanes), which flew from her convertible earlier in the day, is the culprit. While George (John C. McGinley, Stealing Harvard) is trying to repair the tire, his wife Alice, (Leila Kenzle, The Hot Chick) is ploughed into by a Lincoln Town car. This horrific event was witnessed by their son Timothy (Bret Loehr). The limo driver Ed (John Cusack, Serendipity) helps by driving the family to the closest motel to use the phone. He dumps the actress Caroline Suzanne (Rebecca De Mornay) whom he was driving, at the motel because the phone there is out and he is going to drive to the hospital to get an ambulance. Along the way he picks up the stranded Paris and proceeded to get his car stuck when he tried to drive through the flood. Newlyweds Ginny (Clea DuVall, Ghosts of Mars) and Lou (William Lee Scott, Pearl Harbor) pick up the stranded Ed and Paris and head back to the motel. Back at the motel police officer Rhodes (Ray Liotta, John Q) was transporting convict Robert Maine (Jake Busey, Tomcats) and they are also stranded. Well this is how the strangers ended up at Larry’s (John Hawkes, Hardball) motel, so let the murders begin. Oh I failed to mention Alice is still alive and Ed used a sewing kit to close the huge gapping wound in her neck. James
Mangold (Kate & Leopold) directed
Identity and he uses a Hitchcockian approach to the suspense. The actions
leading up to the events are slow and methodic and the horror fast and
deliberate. You can detect the Hitchcock influence throughout the film. I would
like to elaborate on all the flaws I discovered, but to do that would only give
away the ending, an ending which was too hackneyed to belong in this movie. The
movie was engrossing until the end. Also appearing in Identity were Alfred
Molina, Pruitt Taylor Vince (Trapped) and
Terence Bernie Hines. Despite the cheesy ending and flaws to the story, I still
enjoyed this film. I gave Identity an eight on the old rating scale.
Last updated: Thursday, March 20, 2008 02:46:16 AM Click Here to get back into frames.
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