The answer is: Someone who's too smart for mainstream cinema and too stupid for David Lynch

Rating: 6/10 (26 April 2003)

The question is: What kind of person is going to love _Identity_?
The LA Times review says that you would never just be able to guess the ending of this movie. Well, five minutes in, I guessed it. I'll be the first to admit that _Identity_ does have potential: a taut psychological thriller based on Christie's _Ten Little Indians_. Sartre even makes a brief appearance, leading one to hope that this film could give us a meaty existential meditation on the meaning of identity as well a few good scares.
Don't get your hopes up. _Identity_ does all the work for you, requiring zero thought and even less of an attention span. I actually found myself making the story more interesting as I watched. The ending, which is supposed to be a plot twist (though I can't see how your average 12 year old couldn't see it coming a mile away, given the structure of the film) just falls flat and left me with an empty kind of "Is that all?" feeling. I got the feeling that the writer thought he was being original. Negative on that, sir: see _Lost Highway_, _Mullholland Drive_, and _Passion of Mind_ for better variations on the final twist.
That said, most of the audience did not feel as I did about the film, instead chuckling with amazement as they crooed:
"THAT person was the killer? How wacky and original?"
[insert sound of me slapping my forehead- HARD]
With all of that in mind, the performances are all really good. It's nice to see John Cusack getting work. Ray Liotta does the same role he always does, so you can pretty much take it or leave it. Alfred Molina once again changes himself completely and leave me wondering what his real accent actually is.
The look and misé en scène of this film was fantastic. Maybe next time we can have a story.
So, the only way to really enjoy this film is to be too smart for your average Hollywood fare and too obtuse to see the point that the film is trying to make. I'm sure there are people like that out there, but I don't care to meet them.