A gripping psychological journey with only minor flaws.

Rating: 9/10 (1 May 2003)

***This review contains MANY spoilers--please be wary!***
"Identity" is an extremely well-crafted journey through the mind of a killer. And, aside from a few real-world plot problems, succeeds in just about everything it sets out to accomplish.
In the film, 10 people find themselves trapped by the weather in a roadside motel in Nevada. During the night, they become the targets of a systematic, brutal murderer. They also begin to realize they have more in common than they ever imagined.
What leaps out first about this film is the atmosphere it creates: gritty and foreboding, generating a sense of urgency and claustrophobia. In addition, the filmmakers take some bold avenues of exposition in the beginning--such as freeze-frames, contextual flashbacks, etc. Original techniques are employed to make what appears to be a slasher film seem fresh and compelling--deaths are shocking and hard to predict in nature, music is minimally used, character's reactions are used heavily to relay the brutality of the deaths rather than simply seeing the dead bodies, etc.
Acting is top-notch. One would be hard pressed to find one weak performance in the lot. As stated later, each character performs well in the setting of the motel, as well as an element of one man's personality.
The film beings in the vain of a "slasher" film, including several requisite "bait and switch" plot elements--not the least of which is making the audience believe the killer at the motel is the escaped convict (Jake Busey). Another is fooling viewers into thinking Ray Liotta's character is actually a police officer. Though these are respectful attempts at deception, one can't help but think they seem a little too easy to spot early on. But, that's the whole point--they're supposed to be easy to spot, because that's not the real mystery here.
About halfway through the movie, the director starts to hint at some kind of "other worldly" force at work when Jake Busey finds himself running to a structure a quarter mile away from the motel--only to find himself right across the street from where he just came from. This is where the film really starts to take off--and elements that will eventually explain the denoument start to arrive in bundles: A frozen corpse is discovered that strikingly resembles the killer on trial whom we learned about during the opening credits (Malcom Rivers, Played by Pruitt Taylor Vince); Each character discovers they share the same birthday; Victim's bodies begin to disappear with no trace whatsoever; John Cusack's character discovers each person seems to have a name based on a state or city.... and this is when it all snaps into place.
Once it becomes apparent that this meeting of people is actually a meeting of personalities in the mind of Malcom Rivers, the movie takes on a whole new level of meaning--and plot elements and characters can be analyzed for what they are:
representations of what caused this 9 year-old abandoned child to later become a murderer. Each and every plot element of the "story within the story" is actually an element of what Malcom Rivers must have experienced when he was abandoned: The story within the story takes place in an empty motel, which is where Malcom was found years ago; Characters eat from the vending machines--not unlike what Malcom may have been forced to do; An Indian burial ground is mentioned and shown--something Malcom most definitely feared during his abandonment. In retrospect, these elements are frequent and quite stunning.
But what's more stunning is how each character represents a singular element of Malcom Rivers personality at the time of the abandonment. The director graphically allows us to see the genesis of each "personality" in the story within a story:

Paris (Amanda Peet) represents Malcom's perception of his mother as a "whore" who went from man to man, and ultimately abandoned her child in the hopes to start her life someplace else--without the burden of Malcom.

Caroline Suzanne (Rebecca De Mornay) is Malcom's perception of his mother as a non- mother--someone only concerned with herself, her appearance, money, and without the least concern for human life. In other words--she is what Malcom saw most as a child.

Ginny's (Clea Duvall) representation is twofold: she is Malcom himself as a child who is scared of the cold, wary of the Indian burial grounds, and cries in fear. But she may also be the side of Malcom's mother who undoubtedly had a relationship not unlike that of Duvall's in the movie: An attempt to first salvage, and then dissolve a marriage with an abusive mate by using a false pregnancy.

In turn, Joe (William Lee Scott) most definitely represents one or more of the little boy's mother's suitors--abusive and immature, and obviously flirtatious with other women. In other words, the only father figures Malcom ever had.

Larry, the manager (John Hawkes), represents Malcom as a guilty culprit: hiding things that might embarrass him; creating stories to get him out of trouble; In addition, he's the part of Malcom's personality who bears the guilt of "killing" the original, unadulterated personality, before the trauma--someone who "died" long ago in that hotel: the body found in the freezer. This frozen body lies dormant, and is the only "dead" body that doesn't disappear--Malcom's personality can still be saved and "resurrected."

George York (John C. McGinley) is Malcom's inner perception of what a father should truly be: caring, forgiving, always following rules and the proper course of action. He looks after his son when his mother cannot; He can fix a flat; He doesn't argue with his wife; He reassures his son throughout the movie.

Alice York (Leila Kenzle) rounds out Malcom's perception of the "perfect family." She is attentive, sweet, and has an emotional bond with her son. One can also say she may represent the soft side of the child's mother--something he probably rarely saw, and something that was only shared in private between the two (the hand-touching scene). She has the least to say in the movie, because Malcom rarely saw this side of his own mother.

Timothy (Bret Loehr) represents Malcom's purely emotional side as a 9 year old. He never speaks throughout the film, and is relegated to symbolic emotional expressions only. He first shows love (touching hands with his mother), then fear, then sadness (crying after the death of his parents is complete), and finally anger--which drives him to kill.

Rhodes (Ray Liotta), on the surface, can be interpreted as one of Malcom's mother's many "male partners" (hence the flirtation he has with Peete). However, Liotta may also represent the part of Malcom's personality that draws attention away form the real evil (Timothy). In other words, Liotta is an internal "defense" created by Malcom to, oddly enough, protect the discovery of the real culprit among his personalities. In the end, the Liotta character is successful, in as much as he takes the fall for the real "killer" inside Malcom's mind.

That being said, Robert Maine (Jake Busey) is the overt counterpart to Liotta's character. Both he and Liotta serve to distract us--and Malcom--from the real killer personality. Liotta is does it subversively, and Busey does it obviously.

-Last but not least is Ed (John Cusack). He represents two elements: First, he is the hero/strong personality Malcom wishes he could be--he solves the crime; he protects his mother (Peet) and saves her from a life of prostitution--giving her a "second chance" (in an idealistic life: a farmer in an orange grove... something a child might dream up).
But Cusack also represents Malcom's lifelong, ongoing attempt to wrangle the other personalities into submission--the last remaining shard of reason in Malcom's mind. We see the motel setting through Cusack--he tries to come to grips with every other character, and he's the one who "discovers" the link between them in Malcom's subconscious (the map scene). He thinks logically and intelligently--albeit within a fantasy world. Cusack is the character that Malcom identifies with while at the hearing, and he is the one entrusted to root out the "evil" personality that killed those people 4 years earlier in the housing project. Tragically, this last remaining shred of reason ultimately fails--leaving Malcom at the end of the movie in complete dementia, and under the control of the only personality remaining--one driven purely by killer emotion.
Which brings us to an interesting conclusion: Malcom Rivers was so far gone in his dementia, and so consumed with revenge and anger--he did not want to be "saved." Since we all know dreams and fantasies are controlled by ourselves--and every element is placed there by us (even in our subconscious), we can only assume Malcom actively sabotaged his own efforts to "find the killer." In other words--he pulled the most interesting bait and switch of the movie on himself: making his last spark of reason (Cusack) believe the killer was someone else (Busey, then Liotta)--thereby letting the real "killer" inside (Timothy), go free--and preside over the mind and body forever.
This journey through the mind of a person with multiple personality disorder is both creative and enlightening: Many movies on this subject simply offer a character with the same disorder and blame it on an abusive father, a mother with no self respect, and childhood abandon. "Identity" actually graphically depicts each element as a character/ event in a fantasy, and even goes as far to show the struggle within the mind to regain itself versus the internal attempts to sabotage it's own well being.

The only thing that keeps this film from being excellent is the flaws it suffers during the "real world" elements of the film. A last-minute hearing to stay the execution of a convicted mass murderer is not only unrealistic, but it's justification in the film is unrealistic as well. Apparently, the only thing that saved Malcom Rivers from execution is a journal that was "just found" at this late date. Are we to assume that there were no doctors studying this man for the four years he was being held in prison? Was a journal really required to see this man could have plead insanity? Why was this a "last minute" decision?
The only explanation for such an odd turn of events is to facilitate the fantasy world of the motel story. In that setting, there is a feeling of urgency and time-sensitivity. The people must survive until dawn; Malcom Rivers has to find the "inner evil" and get rid of it quickly before it takes any more lives, etc. The only explanation for having such an unrealistic "last minute" discovery of Malcom's insanity is to maintain the feeling of urgency in the real word as well as the fantasy world. In other words--the film would most definitely lack a certain "punch" if the real word events were happening over a period of four years.
All in all, "Identity" is a great psychological study. It's technically not a thriller--as the story really is the journey Malcom Rivers must make to rid himself of evil. Once viewers accept it as a creative attempt to dissect multiple personality disorders, "Identity" truly shines.
One note of warning: Don't be swayed by reviewers who portray themselves as
extremely intelligent for having "figured out" the twist of this film within the first few minutes of viewing it. Their attempts to impress are based on luck, advance
information, and hindsight. Some people feel they have to prove their self-worth by claiming they can deconstruct a movie within minutes of its opening credits-- especially one that requires more thought than they probably have the capacity for. "Identity" is not a film that can or should be deconstructed in the first few minutes: It deserves much better.