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Title: Identity |
It's somewhat of a gentle wink and a nudge that James Mangold's Identity, a movie with only shades of predictability, opens with a visualization of the old cliché, "It was a dark and stormy night..." Identity comes complete with a motel steeped in grisly history and several unexpected guests-cum-victims, all forced to check in thanks to flooded roads and a torrential downpour. Among them are Ed the limo driver and his actress passenger; George, a meek family man and his soon to be wife and stepchild; Paris, a prostitute on her way to "retirement" in Florida; and a young couple who just eloped in Vegas. Somewhere else, a midnight hearing is being held at the last minute for a convicted murderer to gauge his sanity, with the prisoner en route. It's not long after that the final two motel guests arrive due to the inclement weather: Corrections officer Rhodes and his prisoner, Robert Maine, who was recently convicted of multiple murders. But like so many other murder mysteries, all is not what it seems to be. Unlike its classic predecessors, however, in place of the usual twists and turns is a collection of inverted loops.
The surroundings concerning each of the characters' arrival at the motel in some cases go beyond typical circumstance, but each guest's reason for winding up at the roadside motel is the least of their problems: Someone -- namely one of them -- is methodically sending them to the hereafter whenever he or she gets the chance, because despite attempts to not fall victim to their own carelessness and trying to stay together, the inevitable splitting up occurs. The only clue they have to the string of killings is that at each scene, a motel room key is left behind.
Identity isn't a movie heavy on story; from the start it is unabashedly obsessed with the singular problem of unveiling and capturing the killer; when any flashbacking does occur it only goes as far back as the same day. All of the attention is focused very intently on the killings, no sign of any kind of significant back-story between any of the motel's guests. However, what it does lack in a complex plot it makes up for in visuals. Cinematographer Phedon Papamichael helps create a most dreary setting with finesse. A near-derelict motel is given extraordinary character thanks to wonderful camera work, and the intimidating thunderstorm that's cast as the movie's backdrop completes the image. This is a movie about reactions, and Papamichael helps capture them wonderfully against a refreshing take on a setting that's been in too many suspense and horror movies to count accurately.
It's almost a disappointment that the setting is just as strong a character as the human cast members. However, Identity is a rare case where minimal characterization doesn't necessarily hurt the movie on any significant level. John Cusack's Ed is engaging enough. He's a cop on medical leave due to an on-the-job incident that was severely affecting his health. In the interim, he's taken to driving a limo for Hollywood prima donna Caroline Suzanne, played almost gleefully by Rebecca De Mornay. Ray Liotta is, once again, cast as the short-tempered, prone-to-violence character. His Rhodes, along with Jake Busey's convict Robert Maine could've led to some interesting verbal foliage, but instead the relationship was distilled to a simple, bad cop/prisoner routine. Nothing much can be said about Amanda Peet's Paris or John C. McGinley's George. Like the others, they just exist as boilerplate characters. Clea DuVall and Pruitt Taylor Vince's recently married couple barely even registers on the movie's radar. You're either a victim or a suspect in Identity, not someone the audience is going to get attached to in the slightest. Even the motel's proprietor, Larry (John Hawkes) has potential, but it's never explored in any meaningful way.
What separates Identity from most other movies of this type is that there is no tangible motive for any of the guests to be killing each other short of the fact that one of them -- Maine -- is a serial killer. One of the many facts revealed in the film isn't that one or two of them have a secret history with the others. That leaves us with what is perhaps the movie's weakest link: how are murders between complete strangers justified? How are such grisly scenes rationalized outside of a serial killer's mind?
It's with this concept that the movie ultimately fumbles over itself. Mangold (Girl, Interrupted) and screenwriter Michael Cooney lobotomize the movie with their good intentions. Careful viewing reveals several clues to the true identity of the killer, a mixed blessing to be sure. The movie's great revelation, too, isn't so much a cop-out; rather, it's a convenient, clever, explanation for what are otherwise difficult to explain, brutal, seemingly supernatural occurrences. The problem with this particular scenario is that the audience is expected to maintain their level of tension after the movie gives itself away.
Identity is a unique film. Short of bloody corpses, there really isn't much gore to be seen. That certainly doesn't prevent it from having some genuinely frightening moments. As a Who-Dun-It, Mangold's latest can stand proud amongst its peers, but the movie's pacing and disappointing resolution keep it from reaching the higher ranks of the sub-genre. To the movie's credit, it keeps you guessing for a satisfactory amount of time, but ultimately succumbs to poor pacing and a few clichés despite the originality it strives for and occasionally reaches; top it all off with an ending that seems forced, you're left with a murder mystery that delivers, just not all that much. At least the butler didn't do it....