Movie: Identity

Actors: John Cusack, Jake Busey, Rebecca DeMornay, Amanda Peet, Clea DuVall, Ray Liotta
Director: James Mangold, Producer: Cathy Konrad

The movie is very good. Perhaps one the best movies I have seen in years, and which actually allowed me to use part of my brain. The ten people who are trapped in a dark, stormy night are dying one after the other. Their deaths are either murders or apparently natural. And it seems as if the killer is following a countdown method while on the spree. John Cusack plays Edward who is one of the better persons, personalities rather, and is driving an actress named Carolyn Susan (Rebecca De Mornay). George (John C. McGinley), his wife Alice (Liela Kenzle) and Alice’s son Timothy are traveling during the night that the wheel of the car gets punctured and Alice later gets wounded in an accident the same night while George is trying to change the wheel. Amanda Peet plays Paris, a woman born in Florida and who worked in Las Vegas as a prostitute, leaves Las Vegas and is driving toward Nevada. The rainstorm quite creates the conditions that her car wouldn’t start at a point and that is when she encounters Edward. And a just-married couple (Clea DuVall and William Lee Scott) who are driving someplace eastward of the motel. All these people end up at the motel and there also arrives a police detective with a prisoner in his car seeking shelter in the storm.

This movie is not just a thriller. It also gets you thinking and come up with many whos and whys and most viewers require a second time watch in order to perceive it better.

Few years ago I read a book, the story of which went along similar lines as this movie. I don’t remember its name but it was by Sydney Sheldon (if I remember correctly). As for this movie the idea, the script and the direction is simply ‘very good’. James Mangold definitely knew what he was doing while he was making the movie. Many people don’t really get what the movie is about or the plot of it. Because ‘actually’ there is no plot. I do not feel like unraveling the entire story and the riddle that it has; only that it loyally conforms to the tradition that the least suspected person turns out to be the killer in the end. And to somewhat Hollywoodize the movie, the people at the motel including the present motel manager Larry, share the same dates of birth. It would be a plus to have some information on personality disorders to be able to grasp the ongoings of the movie better.