Confused about what happened in Identity? Click here to read the Identity plot explanation. (spoiler alert!)

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by Frank Wilkins
Identity spends the first two-thirds of its runtime laying out the pieces of a generic horror movie puzzle and then accelerates into a brilliant and ambitious psychological murder mystery with enough plot twists to confuse even the most seasoned mystery movie enthusiast.

In a nice little show of respect to Hitchcock's Psycho, Identity's fast moving plot begins as we watch several guests check into a flea-bag motel with a neon sign in the middle of nowhere on a dark and stormy night. Via great storytelling and clever editing, we see that many of the guests are tied to one another by a series of fatefully interlocking consequences. We later learn that there is a far more powerful force that eventually brings together a total of ten guests at the motel.

Leading the pack of the miserable, rain-soaked travelers is Ed (John Cusack), an ex-cop now employed as a limo driver chauffeuring the obnoxiously pompous actress Caroline (Rebecca DeMornay) across the Nevada desert. They hit and severely injure a woman standing by the roadside as her husband fixes a flat. Ed rushes the woman to the nearest motel and quickly sets out for medical help. He encounters a hitchhiking prostitute shortly before crashing his car and the two wind up getting a ride from newlyweds Ginny (Clea Duvall) and Lou (William Lee Scott) back to the motel.

They are soon joined by agent Rhodes (Ray Liotta), a cop transporting a crazed serial killer and it isn't long before the guests begin to vanish - via mostly gruesome circumstances - in reverse order according to their room numbers. Ed and Agent Rhodes spend most of the time running around attempting to solve the mystery as the motel's manager engages in highly suspicious and clandestine behavior.

Meanwhile, we see another parallel drama unfolding that becomes an interesting little back-story to the waterlogged shenanigans at the motel. The film flashes periodically to an eleventh-hour hearing between the lawyers of convicted killer Malcolm Rivers (Pruitt Taylor Vince), and his psychiatrist (Alfred Molina) as they are trying to convince a judge that he should be declared insane and locked away in a state hospital rather than face execution.

Obviously, we know the two seemingly non-connected stories are related but what makes Identity shine and what gives screenwriter Michael Clooney some serious cred is the way the story is told and the stylistic manner in which director James Mangold brings the visuals to the screen. They do however, deploy a few too many load noises coupled with quick cuts meant to startle the audience but they eventually moved away from this cheap tactic and got down to some serious fright business.

Identity has a bit of trouble finding its own identity at first, but once it figures out it wants to be a sleek, mature murder mystery instead of a cheap horror film, it gets in the groove and pours on the twists as the fun and games continue. It could have easily been lead down the teen-slasher-flick-road, but instead, we are treated to a brilliant murder mystery with great atmosphere and a genuine tension that not only challenges the brain but also pleases the senses.

Frank Wilkins

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