Good yarn with a twist no one sees coming

Rating: Null/10 (26 April 2003)

A hotel on the outskirts of Las Vegas, Nevada is the primary setting for the new film Identify, directed by James Mangold (last behind the camera in Kate & Leopold) and written by Michael Cooney, who's last credit was Jack Frost II: Revenge of the Mutant Killer Snowmen.
The premise, as we are lead to believe, is simple, as a group of strangers are all stranded at a rural hotel after a storm blocks the road ways and exits. Reading like a new age cast of Gilligan's Island, we have the movie star (Rebecca DeMornay), the Cop (Ray Liotta), the Chauffer (John Cusack), the married couple (John C. McGinley and Leila Kenzle), the convict (Jake Busey), the arguing newlyweds (Clea DuVall and William Lee Scott), and the prostitute (Amanda Peet). Throw in a mysterious man running the hotel and a child that doesn't want to talk, and we have the recipe for what turns out to be a murderous rampage.
Giving away nothing that isn't in the overblown trailers, the strangers start showing up dead each one more grizzly than the last. To add to the suspense, each dead body comes with its own hotel key which counts down the murders starting from ten.
Everyone in the cast seems to do the best with what they have to work with, but we don't really get to know any of the characters too well. John Cusack's character reveals that he was once a police officer that lost his edge, but all other characters remain mysterious and therefore each a suspect in each new murder.
Along the way, there is a confusing back drop of a psychologist, played admirably by Alfred Molina, who is trying to convince a panel suits that a man they are putting to death in 24 hours is mentally unstable and should be sent to an institution rather than the electric chair (`His body killed those people, not his mind'). We jump back and forth between these discussions and the hotel and in the end, we learn of their connection.
Identity, is one of those rare films where the last act is actually better than the its predecessors. As each member gets killed off without surprise (why in horror films do people find themselves running somewhere alone when they know there is strength in numbers?), we are left bored and tiresome. It's nothing we haven't seen before. However, James Mangold then relates the story back to the convicted killer, and that is when you sit up, straighten your collar, and understand both the motivations and the outcomes of each of the strangers.
Identity is a good film if for nothing else that it boldly tries something new and even the most clever of audiences probably didn't have the ending figured out. Where it loses marks is in its cardboard writing and its typical ending which leaves enough room for a sequel while giving thriller fans one last jolt.
I recommend Identity. All involved have done better work, but there is no doubt it is popcorn fare, and no doubt, you will be talking about the ending after the lights come up.