Good, but another big "surprise"

Rating: 8/10 (18 January 2004)

Identity is the latest in a long line of recent thrillers that seems to live for "the twist." Popularized recently mostly by films written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan, "the twist" is a feature of a film that develops in one direction to suddenly end up in another. Much to my surprise, Identity handles it's primary twist well, and I commend it for that. However, on the way to it's main twist, it tries to hard to build in others that are quickly revealed, much to my chagrin.
The film is set primarily at a lonely motel in the middle of the desert. A group of strangers, from various walks of life, find themselves stranded at this motel in the midst of a torrential rain storm. One by one, they begin to die off in various rather gruesome ways, leaving the survivors to be suspicious of each other as to who is the killer. The characters are all different, and as such utilizes the seeming requirement that a film with this kind of situation (small group of characters trapped in a secluded location) feature unique, and sometimes slightly weird, "types" to fill out it's roster. The primary character is Ed, played by John Cusack, a limo driver transporting a fallen movie star (Rebecca DeMornay) to a job, and he quickly finds himself in his element as a former policeman while trying to solve the murders. The rest of the bunch is composed of Rhodes (Ray Liotta), a detective transporting Robert Maine (Jake Busey), a convicted killer; Paris (Amanda Peet) a prostitute on the way to a better life; newlyweds Ginny (Clea Duvall) and Lou (William Lee Scott); Larry (John Hawkes) the motel manager, and finally George (John C. McGinley) a rather mawkish man who's wife was injured in a traffic accident. Even though they are "types" most of the actors do a good job of filling out their characters.
Identity is a stylish looking film, full of wet, dark imagery that increases the creep factor extensively. The film is also suspenseful throughout, featuring plenty of genuine scares and surprises for the most part. However, as the film continues to run, it becomes obvious that we, the audience, are being set up for a switch in the film's basic premise, which I will not reveal here. However, it is not too surprising when this switch happens, as various earlier scenes telegraph it to us. Director James Mangold and screenwriter Michael Cooney have slightly sabotaged one of the film's central conceits by constantly reminding us of what appears at first to be a subplot and eventually turns out to be the movie's primary plot. I think that this twist would have worked better had there been almost no setup, or at least a lot less than was featured.
That being said, Cooney and Mangold aren't through with us after that first twist. There are others to come, and the final one is quite a surprise that was not nearly as obvious. From that point of view, Identity is a success, proving that a filmmaker can still surprise the audience in a time when thrillers abound with twist endings becoming more and more unsurprising in their revelations. You occasionally find yourself wishing that directors and writers would just make a straightforward thriller and leave the twists and turns in the past occasionally instead of always trying to formulate the next big "surprise."