Incredible, Except for the Ending!

Rating: 8/10 (11 December 2004)

I have seen few films that give you are real Sixth Sense type of shock in them. It's probably because few directors are capable of manufacturing them. Then again, maybe there aren't enough good scripts. Whatever the reason, James Mangold does an excellent job with "Identity". The cast alone is stellar! You have Ray Liotta, John Cusack, Amanda Peet (great in "The Whole Nine Yards"), Alfred Molina (Spiderman 2), Clea Du Vall, Rebecca De Mornay (quite a surprise), and a few other familiar faces.
All of these stars are cast into a motley bunch of characters that are held up in a local motel due to a rainstorm. The introductory scenes are cleverly tied together in a sequence of demonstrations of how one thing leads to another. The final destination for all of these encounters is the motel, which seems to resemble an island in the middle of nowhere. I can't tell you much more of this film without ruining it. I can say that a convict arrives in the custody of an officer. He escapes and one of the hotel guests ends up dead. Murder continues as another and yet another of the group is killed.
The redeeming quality of this film and the main reason to watch it is in its portrayal of everything appearing as what it is, yet being something entirely different. The ending, what adding another shock, was too far-fetched for me. I felt the movie could have actually ended at an earlier point, but it would have changed the entire overall mood. Watch it and judge for yourself! 8/10