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| DIRECTED BY |
| James Mangold
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| STARRING |
| John Cusack |
| Ray Liotta |
| Amanda Peet |
| Alfred Molina |
| Clea DuVall |
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With ‘Identity,’ James Mangold has shown us that he knows how to construct a mystery/horror film. We’re presented with an eerie, rain-drenched atmosphere, given a claustrophobic feeling, and presented with a variety of eclectic characters to keep our mind running over this ‘whodunit.’ But, unfortunately, James Mangold doesn’t know how to conclude a mystery/horror film – and when any film leaves an unsatisfied feeling in the pit of the viewer's stomach as well as a thought of being somehow cheated (not cleverly tricked) in their mind, it’s an ultimate failure.
The impressiveness of the opening sequence and its various flashbacks manages to cast a resonating aura of intrigue over the whole storyline. Without reluctance, I immersed my brain into the chaotic environment that these characters had suddenly found themselves in. This immersion was helped considerably by the appealingly subtle soundtrack and Mangold’s obvious visual flair. I don’t have much criticism for the first half of the film, except that in one scene we can see rain pouring down in only one direction atop a car, clearly revealing its fakeness. I also noticed a continuity error in the dialogue – when we see John C. McGinley’s character storms into the motel carrying his wife he says, “It was an accident; we had an accident.” When we see the scene again, he only says, “There was an accident.” These foibles are, indeed, insubstantial, but they also show Mangold’s lack of perfectionism as a filmmaker.
The cast is adequate, although John Hawkes tends to carry this dumbfounded, eyeball-popped expression so often that it gets laughable. John Cusack is as stoic as ever, which would be annoying had it not been for Ray Liotta to explosively contrast his personality. And Rebecca De Mornay as the ill-fated actress looks drastically different with her hair dyed black now, but certainly not bad.
The first twist isn’t exactly what one would call obvious, but it’s not unpredictable either. It’s reasonably clever, however, and at that point I hadn’t begun to dislike the film. But then, after the second major twist, I realized that Michael Cooney, the screenwriter, must’ve felt that deceiving his audience is the most important thing to do. This is a wrong assumption – even if I manage to predict an ending, I won’t necessarily dislike the film. When a film suddenly makes a nearly incomprehensible amount of zigzags, however, I know that I’ll end up hating it. ‘Identity’ suffers the latter fate.
The following paragraph is an analyzation of the script and my take on its various plot twists, so it’s fraught with spoilers:
It isn’t until the last ten-or-so minutes of ‘Identity’ that the audience finds out that they’re confused because what they were watching was, indeed, incoherent because of the fact that it was all simply a figment of a schizophrenic’s imagination. Apparently, the screenwriter thought that it would be a great idea to have his audience contemplate a mystery that wasn’t going to make sense at all anyway because a schizophrenic’s imagination has the ability to randomly insert details (like reappearing room keys) into his mind on incoherent whim. This incoherence (obviously) leads up to nothing more than frustration on behalf of any level-minded moviegoer. I took the first twist in stride, however, and tried to piece together how John Cusack’s character could’ve been murdering and then forgetting everything. But then comes the back-breaker – the next twist tells us that Pruitt T. Vince’s character had simply decided to think up this whole mystery movie plot as a form of denial concerning his previous crimes or some BS of that nature. As a liberal-minded cineaste, however, I decided to make sense of even this ridiculousness, and it just doesn’t hold up. It’s too easy to build up a labyrinthine plot and then just smash it all to pieces by placing everything upon some external character (dues ex machina, anyone?) And the final sequence, which attempts to dramatically reveal to us which one of Vince’s polar personalities will prevail, is surprising only in how amazingly stupid it all turns out to be.
I respect the fact that Mangold is diversifying his career by making drastic jumps in genre, but hopefully now he’ll realize that when he keeps it simple, he gets the best results (see Heavy or Cop Land.)
