An Effective Twist In What Seemed To Be A Cliché Movie

Rating: 7/10 (9 October 2010)

For at least three quarters of this movie you think you're watching the same story that's been done over and over again in various settings. A group of complete strangers have been forced together by a set of strange circumstances and coincidences and - wouldn't you know it - they start to get killed off one by one. Ho hum. OK. You know what you're in for. It's nothing special because it's been done so many times before, but there's a reasonably effective mystery as to who's actually doing the killing and so you settle in for what you expect will be a passable if utterly unspectacular movie, made a little bit better by a pretty good cast, headed by John Cusack, Ray Liotta and Amanda Peet. Then comes the twist - truly one of the more effective (because it's so unexpected) twists I've ever seen in a movie.
We knew from the beginning of the movie that a serial killer was a part of the equation. He's being transported to a hearing the night before he's due to be executed for his crimes, and a car accident makes him one of the strangers, and the obvious suspect - until he, too, turns up dead. But who could have expected the actual twist. None of it is real. Everything is taking place inside the mind of the serial killer, who actually has multiple personality disorder and is receiving some type of treatment designed to bring his various personalities "together" at the same time so that they can kill one another off - including the one responsible for committing the serial killings. Sure. It's probably nonsense, but still I was taken completely off balance by that one. It was completely unexpected and - as far as I'm concerned - quite ingenious. My only quibble with it is that perhaps the "twist" was introduced a bit too soon. Once it was revealed it seemed to take away some of the drama of what was happening, because now we knew that it was all inside the killer's head, and that none of the actually murders taking place are actually taking place. Still, the movie manages also to end on a bit of a "twist" note. Things are still not exactly what you expect - the identification of which personality is actually the serial killer is a surprise.
The movie left things a little bit open at the end, making me wonder if a sequel (never made) was on the minds of the producers. Whether that was or not, this turned out to be a decent little thriller; much more entertaining than I expected it to be at first.