IDENTITY (2003) Reviewed by John Sylva © 2003, TheMovieInsider.com
On the whole, James Mangold's twisty-turny Identity very much resembles the Nevada hotel at which its ensemble of offbeat characters check into after being stranded by a torrential flood. There are ten rooms at this rundown hotel that probably gives your local Super 8 a run for its money-and roughly the same amount of rooms, albeit metaphoric ones, in the film's screenplay. Each room contains its own secret that will, when brought to light, bring the audience to closer realization of "what's going on?" here-but, as in any good thriller, discovering these secrets is hardly as easy as a friendly knock on the door. Doors to some rooms have been left wide open (perhaps by shoddy hotel maintenance workers, or in the film's case, screenwriter Michael Cooney), while others remain locked until the film's final reel, as if a "Do Not Disturb" sign has been temporarily etched upon it. It's the experience of discovering what lies within these rooms that is the pleasure of Identity, what may be the first genuine breakthrough in its genre since 1996's Scream.
Identity is a fun enough ride up until its last act: Its characters-ranging from a charismatic ex-hooker (Amanda Peet) to an antsy hotel clerk (John Hawkes), from a limo driver (John Cusack) of a has-been actress (Rebecca DeMornay) to a police officer (Ray Liotta) transporting a demented prisoner (Jake Busey), and from a newly-married couple (Clea DuVall and William Lee Scott) to an overly worrisome father (the great John C. McGinley) and his eerily quiet son (Bret Loehr)-are colorful, varied personalities whose motivations are never quite clear, whose innocence as the other guests start dropping like flies is never definite. The film also has a unique edge-the dialogue, while often cliché, is recited in a matter-of-fact way that lends a bit of realism to the clearly not-so-real situation at hand, while Mangold's direction is superb, successfully juggling the various subplots and time-frames like a skillful juggler who always knows when it's time to drop one scarf and pick up the next. But then, Mangold really pulls out the rug from both the audience and his characters with a knockout twist that, despite the various clues dropped along the way, I would have never foreseen. The ability to be surprised by a film of Identity's nature is something I thought I had lost long ago-but that's not the only reason I admire this film's culmination so greatly. With said revelation, Mangold sets his Identity on a level that has possibly never been achieved by a slasher film before it-and no, that's not an overstatement. What level, you ask? Well, I guess that's one door that will have to remain locked until you open it yourself. Like Hitchcock's Psycho, Identity is a hotel of horrors that's worth checking into.
GRADE: B+
Film reviewed July 23rd, 2003.
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