Give me a break.

Rating: 4/10 (16 June 2003)

(Contains spoilers) A group of strangers stranded at a deserted motel one dark, rainy night are picked off one by one by a killer ... I heard about this movie a long time before it was released and I waited anxiously for it. I was really looking forward to it and really wanted to like it because I'm a fan of suspense thrillers, slasher-type/serial-killer movies, and members of the cast such as the excellent John Cusack and Clea DuVall. Unfortunately, I was shocked at how bad this movie was. I had read a positive review of it where it said it played like an average slasher movie until an impressive twist towards the end made up for the rest of the movie. Impressive twist? Don't make me laugh. What's the twist? Well, the whole cast turn out to be the same character, the killer's different personalities knocking each other off! And then a final little twist about which of the personalities was the actual killer. Like anyone cares ... It reminds me of Nicholas Cage's character in "Adaptation" panning his twin brother's screenplay "The 3" - to paraphrase: "You mean the cop, the killer, and the girl are all the same character?!" Summary: The acting is fairly good, as is the cinematography (the director does dark, rainy nights as good as anyone) but "Identity" is a ludicrous and very bad movie. A big disappointment. What was the impressive cast thinking? I just hope they got paid well for it, at the very least.