Identity Review
by Andrew Staker (adonis_love AT hotmail DOT com)August 22nd, 2003
IDENTITY
Regardless of how scary the real world is, cinema can still rightly be a place that entertainingly terrifies us.
Director James Mangold's film attempts to do this, and to some extent he succeeds. After opening with the best setup I've seen in years, whereby one event leads to another which leads to yet another and using non-linear time to do this, one can't help but mourn "Identity"'s going to movie mush.
We have an assortment of characters from different places and with different directions in life. They end up at the cosiest motel since Norman Bates' on an aptly dark and stormy cinematic night. The tension almost transcends the screen before us, making me slightly twitch in my seat at certain bits. The cast, including John Cusack and Ray Liotta, do a good enough job. Yet about 45 minutes in, Michael Cooney's script let me down. The film becomes another one-by-one slasher flick, where the main entertainment consists of guessing who'll go next: the hysterical newlywed semi-bimbo or the neurotic husband whose wife got run over.
I guess the filmmakers had hoped that their redemption might come in the form of two jaw-dropping twists. Actually, this is not the case. Either you' ve worked them out before they happen or when they do befall you, your reaction will consist of a cognisant sigh. If we are to talk about a dominant theme that connects all the deaths, we can't overlook the killer's paranoid sense of morality, whereby escorts are 'dirty whores' and women who should be treated as animals more than as people. Why this is the case is never really explained: we're either supposed to speculate about it or be too overwhelmed to ponder it.
Despite all this, I think Mangold and cinematographer Phedon Papamichael create a wonderful ambiance that at times almost absorbed me completely. If you want to sit through a tense hour and a half (well, the first 45 minutes are impeccable, the rest is passable) then you shouldn't go past "Identity".
Andrew Staker
Originally posted in the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup. Copyright belongs to original author unless otherwise stated. We take no responsibilities nor do we endorse the contents of this review.
