From the makers of Jack Frost...

Rating: Null/10 (5 July 2003)

ALL MY REVIEWS CONTAIN SPOILERS. EVERY ONE OF THEM.

Identity is a rug snatcher. This is a phrase I made up but will soon lose credit for now that it's been made public. Anyway, it defines a movie that deliberately tries to snatch the rug out from under your feet, just for the sake of messing with your head. Just when you think you know the movie, A-ha! SNATCH! It isn't what it seems, is it, silly audience member? Boy, are we Hollywood writers smart!!
This technique was done well with The Usual Suspects, but since then, it has erupted into almost a Hollywood tradition. The Sixth Sense, The Game, Planet of the Apes, Fight Club, Wild Things, The Others, and now Identity are all rug snatchers. A Nightmare on Elm Street 6 was also a rug snatcher, because who would have ever thought Freddy would have actually died?
Identity is also stupid. One of my strict movie rules I follow: Never trust a movie that begins on a dark and stormy night. The film is about 10 strangers who all meet up to spend the night in a motel and end up getting bumped off one by one. A woman is hit by a car and is hurt badly through most of the movie. Her husband and weirdo son tend to her wounds. John Cusack plays a limo driver who used to be a cop. And Rebecca DeMornay, who has been visiting the tasty cakes section too often, plays a snobby ex movie star. I can't believe this is the same woman who played the hot hooker in Risky Business. I think she alone is the reason this film is called Identity. Try to guess who she is.
Anyway, the film starts off well. The characters are introduced in a fairly original way and the tension builds to a great premise. Then...A-ha! SNATCH! The writers give up and snatch the rug from under us and flips our whole world upside down. The movie gives us a twist on top of the original twist, because once we learn the 10 characters are all the same guy (from Natural Born Killers) we then have to figure out which fake personality did all the fake killing. Like we even care at this point. I mean, it's all fake. The movie even cheats in this aspect, because they purposely leave out huge details and clues to prevent the audience from trying to figure things out. Well, isn't that the definition of a mystery? Figuring out clues? God, I hate a stupid movie.
I had good intentions for Identity because its writer, Michael Cooney, also wrote a brilliant movie called Jack Frost. No, not the happy Michael Keaton version. I'm talking about the REAL Jack Frost-- the original. The one that was snubbed at the Oscars. The one about a killer snowman who terrorizes a small down with his big teeth and deadly ice cycles that shoot like bullets.
But now, he's gone from genius to commercial and brings us this crap on a stick called Identity. Movies that start off well and end crappy piss me off more than movies that are crappy from jump. At least the 100% crappy movies don't lie and mislead us. But the ones that start well build our anticipation with false hope. That's like the Prom Queen inviting you to her bedroom...to read Tolstoy.
* out of 5.