It lost me in the last act

Rating: 9/10 (28 May 2003)

Identity begins with the stranding of ten people at an out of the way motel on a dark and stormy night. The phones at the motel are out and the roads are washed out. The guests at this motel are, a family on vacation, a limo driver and his famous actress charge, a prostitute leaving Las Vegas, a couple just married, a federal marshal with a convicted serial killer in tow, and the clerk at the desk. Did I mention that it is a dark and stormy night. Well Constant Reader, you probably already realize that this is a sure prescription for disaster. Soon after the guests are settled in, they start getting killed off, one, by one.	The first hour of this movie follows the formula adopted by many a slasher/mystery. We suspect along with the characters that one of the stranded guests is committing the murders. We have two investigators on this case, the limo driver Ed (John Cusack) and the Federal Marshall Rhodes (Ray Liotta). Considerable tension mounts among the guests as they all begin to suspect each other. And while it is all stuff we have seen before it is entirely compelling because it is so well done. The fodder in most thrillers is typically uninteresting and when the killer does visit them we care not a whit. In this film though all of the characters are extremely well drawn. This is essential as this film basically starts out as an exercise in genre filmmaking. These characters are intelligently written, they don't seem typical, in any way of the mystery/thriller genre. We get a sense of the lives they have lived before they all come together in an out of the way motel in a driving storm. While we don't see or hear much about those lives we get a hint of what they have been like before the moment we meet them in the film.
I liked everything about this first hour and twenty minutes or so. No let me make a stronger statement. I loved the first hour and twenty minutes of this movie. I especially liked the limo driver Ed. John Cusack's limo driver is something out of a 1940's hard-boiled crime drama, not Sam Spade, but closer to Philip Marlow. He is a nice guy, who has seen much, and most of what he has seen has not been good. He is a limo driver, but he hasn't always been one. I think you will guess what he did before the chauffer gig long before it gets revealed, and if you don't you will say oh, of course. And what is neat is every one is good in this film, every part is good. There isn't a throw away role in the film. For me that is the damnable misery of it.
In this day and age you cannot make an eerie mystery without a major twist or two. That is not necessarily a bad thing. I like surprises, I bet you do too, and there is a big surprise in Identity. I can't tell you what it is of course. I can tell you that I absolutely hated it. That the twist is well done is not in dispute. Is it interesting? That is something you will have to decide for yourself. For me it ruined everything I had come to think about the characters. The climax becomes just a matter of tying up loose ends. I no longer cared how it ended, who lived or who died, with the big twist all that stuff just ceased to matter.
I walked out disappointed. But I can't say the movie is bad at all. It is well crafted, and engaging. And it may be engaging to you Constant Reader, even after the twist. In a genre that is typically filled with mindless trash, Identity makes an effort to be an engaging thriller, it doesn't do it with cheap thrills or lots of special effects. It depends instead on thoughtful direction, engaging script, and excellent acting and a lot of rain. I give the movie a 9