Don't Identify With This.

Rating: 4/10 (5 June 2015)

Identity (2003): Dir: James Mangold / Cast: John Cusack, Ray Liotta, Amanda Peet, Jake Busey, Clea DuVall: Thriller that jerks viewers around the theme of multiple personalities. What the screenplay needs is multiple good story points. It begins fine with characters introduced as well as events surrounding their arrivals. We have the family with the injured passenger. We have an ex-cop driving a snotty actress in a limousine. We have a cop as well as the killer he is transporting, as if that isn't obvious. We have the eloping couple that bicker like guest from The Jerry Springer Show. Finally we have a hooker named Paris (how nice). One graphic incident after another with images of characters being hacked to pieces, hit by cars, bludgeoned to death, shot to death, etc. We are even given the image of a baseball bat emerged from someone's mouth. That is about the height of intelligence in this dead beat film. Director James Mangold makes good use of locations but this is no Cop Land. Actors are like roll call from limo driver John Cusack to cop Ray Liotta, to Peet with a case of money, to psychotic Jake Busey who escapes, to Clea Du Vall as a whiny bride. This is a roll call in shame with actors capable of better things than this. They assemble in single file until their time to be picked off has arrived. What we have here is a blood drenched mess done by people who should remain nameless. Score: 4 / 10