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Film
A real stinker
[Photo: Columbia Pictures]
After seeking refuge from a storm at a roadside Nevada motel, Ed (John Cusack, left) and Rhodes (Ray Liotta) confront a series of grotesque murders. |
By STEVE PERSALL, Times Film Critic
© St. Petersburg Times
published April 24, 2003
Something's rotten in this contrived copy of an Agatha Christie whodunit, and it's more than the bodies piling up.
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A school of red herrings swims through Identity, a movie flopping around like a beached fish, with much of the same aroma. As contrived would-be thrillers go, this one is a whopper.
What we have here is a movie spending more than an hour aping Agatha Christie's Ten Little Indians, with characters making so many stupid moves to remain in jeopardy that it can't be taken seriously. Then, after screenwriter Michael Cooney paints himself into an inescapable corner, he leaps to a conclusion that should leave moviegoers shaking their heads in dismissal -- at least those who haven't seen a movie in the past few years.
It's a dark and stormy night when 10 strangers find themselves at a remote Nevada motel. Ed (John Cusack) is a limousine driver carting a witchy actor (Rebecca De Mornay) to Los Angeles. Ray Liotta plays Lt. Rhodes, a detective hauling a convicted murderer (Jake Busey) somewhere. The York family (John C. McGinley, Leila Kenzle, Bret Loehr) is on vacation when a gruesome accident changes its plans. Paris (Amanda Peet) is a call girl looking for a dry spot, and Las Vegas newlyweds Lou (William Lee Scott) and Ginny (Clea DuVall) already need counseling.
The motel is managed by Larry (John Hawkes), a guy just grubby enough to be considered a suspect when guests begin dying grotesquely. One gets decapitated. Another has a baseball bat shoved down his gullet. Two are slammed by moving vehicles. Another gets stabbed. Pretty soon everybody is looking at each other suspiciously while viewers are looking at their wristwatches or wondering if a popcorn tub makes a good sickness receptacle.
Among all these people, only one has a cell phone, and its battery is dead. The motel phones are knocked out, although there's still electricity for creepy lighting effects. The cop's radio doesn't work, either. Cars are out of gas, and roads are washed out. Cooney considers every means to get these characters to safety, then devises ludicrous ways to eliminate them.
As soon as anyone emerges as the chief suspect, he or she becomes USDA dead meat. Perhaps if Identity were populated by unknown, aspiring actors, the clumsy tension would be excusable, or even a bit of fun. Watching actors such as Cusack, Liotta and even Peet who should know better is a puzzling letdown. The first 70 minutes of Identity is just an all-star slasher flick containing every cliche the Scream trilogy ridiculed.
Ah, but there is a twist that won't be discussed much except for its cringing attempt to tie all these shabby threads together. Pay attention to the opening credits when a psychologist (Alfred Molina) interviews a shifty-eyed patient (Pruitt Taylor Vince) and you'll know a couple of key figures aren't who we're supposed to believe they are for more than an hour. The last-reel solution is at first confusing, then absurdly illogical and finally tasteless. There is a reason for all that dumb behavior at the motel, but it's a dramatically desperate one.
Mangold (Kate & Leopold; Girl, Interrupted) maintains a straight face through all these shenanigans when a wry smile would better have served the script. The actors, knowing what trick Cooney has up his sleeve, take their incomplete roles much more seriously than they deserve. Maybe all this reads better on the page than it plays, or a second viewing would reveal some deeply disguised, anarchic slant to the superficial conventions. I'll pass.
Identity
- Grade: D
- Director: James Mangold
- Cast: John Cusack, Ray Liotta, Amanda Peet, Alfred Molina, Clea DuVall, Rebecca De Mornay, John C. McGinley, John Hawkes, Jake Busey, Pruitt Taylor Vince, William Lee Scott, Bret Loehr
- Screenplay: Michael Cooney
- Rating: R; graphic violence, harsh profanity, sexual situations
- Running time: 96 min.
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