Grade: A
“Identity” begins as an exercise in formula. Eleven strangers, a violent storm, car accidents, washed-out roads, a freaky “Psycho”-style motel … and then one by one the characters begin to get killed off. Sounds familiar, right? But don’t fret; there are a few more twists yet to be discovered.
Parallel to the motel storyline, we see a judge awakened for the late-night hearing of a man named Pruitt Taylor Vince, who has been convicted of multiple savage murders. The next day Vince will be executed unless his psychiatrist (Alfred Molina, “Frida”) can convince the judge to overturn his own ruling.
The two stories will connect soon enough; the fun is in trying to figure out how.
Back at the motel, Ed (John Cusack, “High Fidelity”), the limousine driver who claims to be a former Los Angeles policeman, is stitching up the wounds of a woman (Leila Kenzie, “The Hot Chick”) he injured with his car in the storm. The woman’s family, her painfully neurotic, constantly in-shock husband and her mute young child, watch as Ed demonstrates his mysteriously professional stitch-job.
Other characters stuck at the motel are the daydreaming prostitute Paris (Amanda Peet, “Saving Silverman”), the washed-up movie star (Rebecca De Mornay, “Backdraft”) and a newlywed couple (Clea DuVall, “Ghosts of Mars” and William Lee Scott, “Pearl Harbor”), who rail against each other for unknown reasons. Soon enough another cop (Ray Liotta, “Narc”) shows up with a killer (Jake Busey, “Starship Troopers”) he was transporting.
Cusack’s Ed quickly becomes the likable leader of the group. His Hollywood rep as the do-no-wrong underdog proves a valuable commodity in the film’s dark world of murder and constant downpour.
“Identity,” with its wonderful screenplay by Michael Cooney and James Mangold’s intriguing direction, defies the usual downfalls of a mystery/horror film. Where most films begin with enough originality and innovation only to peeter off into predictability, “Identity” does the complete opposite.
It begins with a campy horror film set-up and somewhat predictable stereotyped characters (the unflinching hero, the innocent hooker searching for her dream). Anyone could figure out when certain people are going to die and when their bodies (or what’s left of them) will turn up. But this is all part of the fun — working to take the audience by surprise but not bludgeon it with impossible conclusions.
The astute viewer will probably be able to arrive at the film’s solutions slightly before they are revealed on-screen, but the major twists are unleashed early enough that the storyline has room to breath. Even after the film’s secrets are discovered, there is still some story left.
Every character has a secret or two, and soon enough each of them could very likely be the killer. But then accidents begin to happen, bodies disappear and explosions rock the motel.
There is even some suspicion regarding an Indian burial ground upon which the motel was erected. Soon enough, the audience is sucked into the motel, rooting for every character as their numbers begin to dwindle.
The beauty of “Identity” is that it borrows all the best characteristics of genre films: the flash of a good horror movie, the intelligence of a psychological thriller and the Hitchcockian quality of keeping even the most jostling surprises believable and somewhat simple.
