Welcome to the Twist-A-Rama

Rating: 8/10 (23 February 2004)

When the defense attorneys for serial killer Malcolm Rivers discover that the prosecution suppressed evidence pointing to the man's insanity, a midnight hearing is held with a judge the night before his intended execution to consider the implications. Meanwhile, a group of strangers stranded by a storm at a desert motel find themselves being killed off one-by-one. The strangers slowly begin to realize that they aren't their by coincidence. They all have a common link....
Director James Mangold starts the film off promisingly with atmosphere and tension galore. Still, with the exception of the Malcolm Rivers angle, we are essentially being served up a warmed-over version of Agatha Christie's "And Then There Were None." It is a true credit to that creaky old warhorse that the story hums along so effectively for so long. Credit should also go to the excellent cast headed by John Cusack and Ray Liotta. I found myself quickly drawn into the mystery, and I would be singing the praises if it weren't for the above-mentioned Malcolm Rivers angle.
SPOILER...
Thinking the audience would be bored with a simple Christie rehash, Mangold and company felt the need to give us a twist. A big twist. It turns out the characters at the motel are the multiple personalities in Rivers' head. They are being eliminated one by one as a single personality tries to take complete control. Meanwhile, at the hearing, Rivers' psychiatrist tries to guide the process so that a benign, safe personality ultimately survives.
Okay, okay. It was a interesting twist. Clever, in fact. Not as good as the one in "The Sixth Sense," but certainly better than the inane one in "Fight Club." Unfortunately, it was also completely wrong-headed. I felt cheated. I had spent over an hour making an emotional investment into the characters at the motel only to discover they weren't real. After they revealed the twist, I no longer cared about the Cusack and company when we returned to the hotel. What was the point? They were just a fiction.

Of course, the irony of my reaction was not lost on me. All of the characters I ever cared about in movies were either wholly fictional or fictional depictions of real characters. So why did it bother me here? Because the film makers had to nerve to show me the man behind the curtain. They robbed me of the hard-won illusion that what is happening on the screen was real. That it mattered. They stole away the magic, and I like my magic.
Some things are more important than being clever.