IDENTITY
Reviewed by Terry Anderson
5/4/02

I pride myself on figuring out plots and though I am pretty good I DID NOT get this one.  I never saw it coming and I will give you the same clue that I gave myself going into the theatre, why the title?  I will also admit, up front, that this is a "slasher" movie.  Not exactly my forte but the trailer hooked me.  With many pictures of this genre, there is more slash than substance and that makes the recipe very tired.  On the other hand, this picture gave a twist and then another twist and then slammed us back to reality so quickly that we were rethinking every scene, character and plot twist to see WHY we didn't see it coming.

During an extremely hard rain storm a group of travelers all wind up together at a remote motel.  An ex cop, an aging movie star, a cop and his prisoner, a hooker, a newlywed couple and a family of three all are there seeking refuge but all find terror as they start to die violently, one by one.  Just when you think you know who it is, that person dies!  John Cusack is the character that we focus on and we know from the start that he is the good guy but everybody else is suspect.  We get to know the people and then, WHACK!  Ray Liotta is good as a cop who can't seem to catch the killer and seems to to be a little strange himself.  ALL the characters are carrying "baggage" and find that they have quite a bit in common.

Director James Mangold kept the suspense level and the terror factor very high and managed to throw us off and confused our "who done it" skills.  There was even a point in the story where I was angry and thought I had been had, but he didn't end the picture there and gave us another ending, AFTER the ending.  It all came together to make more of a Hitchcock/Stephen King psychological thriller rather than a run of the mill slasher, horror movie. I liked it.

RECOMMENDATION:  If you can take the language and graphic violence, coupled with the high level of suspense, go see it.  No sex but LOTS of blood!

TWO INTESTINE TANGLED, BLOODY THUMBS UP!!!  

Movie Review © 2003 by Terry Anderson