Identity (2003)
Identity (2003) — After watching Knight and Day I got the urge to revisit one of James Mangold’s older [better] movies (if I have time this weekend I might watch 3:10 to Yuma as well). He’s worked well in wildly disparate genres and this is his take on the horror flick. But it’s not really a horror flicks. Yeah there’s some gore, a couple jumps, and a plot wherein a group of people are systematically picked opff one-by-one, but it works as more of a thriller than horror. What the movie does best is atmosphere. The rain in this film is so unrelenting it is practically another character (and I suppose in a way it is). Eventually the plot develops in a way that is not really original at all but the film sells it. I’m sure some people yelled “oh come on!” but I felt that the film set it up enough so it was earned as opposed to the last-ditch effort a screenwriter that has run out of ideas. Anyway it allows for a rather unsettling ending. The cast includes John Cusack as a limo driver, Ray Liotta as a cop, Amanda Peet as a prostitute, John Hawkes as a hotel owner, Clea DuVall and William Lee Scott as a pair of newlyweds, Jake Busey as an imprisoned murderer, Rebecca DeMornay as a prima donna actress, and John C. McGinley as a man on the road with his wife and stepson. They all get stranded at a motel in the desert in the pouring rain. Bad things ensue. There’s is also another storyline involving a doctor (Alfred Molina) and his death row patient (Pruitt Taylor Vince). The two intersect in a way that in retrospect isn’t really surprising but caught me off guard when I first saw this movie seven years ago. Anyway, Identity is a solid, if minor, entry in the mind-fuck thriller category and I found it very entertaining.
